“MURANO SOTTOVUOTO AL FLORIAN” by FABIO FORNASIER

Fabio Fornasier and the art of glass chandeliers

In Murano, master glassblowers have been passed on their skills through generations and became famous all over the world for the quality of their craft. The art of glass chandeliers, designed according to the canons of the most sophisticated elegance and produced with centuries-old techniques in furnaces that are just as old, made its stylistic impression in mansions and palace halls of international aristocracy. It never lost, over the course of time, the slightest detail. Fabio Fornasier followed in his father Luigi’s footsteps to become a master glassblower at a very young age. He never stopped researching shapes, colours, finishing touch for his creations. His production, of a very peculiar style, is original in its entirety – Fornasier put traditional Murano Glass techniques at the service of modern artistic creativity to create glass chandeliers that are, for all intents and purposes, art installations. Curvy, elegant shapes preserve the typical mechanical balance of the chandelier, with glass parts giving life to what is a new and original piece every time one is created. Fornasier’s iconic work is, today, LU-Murano, a chandelier that transforms itself and is in perpetual becoming, all while remaining true to its style: a great, unmistakable personality.

Fabio Fornasier’s “Murano sottovuoto (literally vacuum-packed Murano)” at Caffè Florian’s captivating exhibition

With the exhibition “Murano sottovuoto al Florian”, curated by Caffè Florian Art Director Stefano Stipitivich, Fabio Fornasier keeps amazing us: a new piece of conceptual and artistic originality of great aesthetical and metaphorical value, a piece that pays due homage to memory and exemplifies what Murano Glass fights against today.

The art, installed in the Sala delle Stagioni (Room of Seasons) is the kind of piece Fornasier excels at – a chandelier. The artist’s incredible lighting fixtures are modern art sculptures that find their place in the tradition of Murano glass art. They are a combination of art and design and a beautiful display of complex spatial shapes. In mansions and public buildings all over the world, there makes its appearance the shining beauty of Murano glass.

Maestro Fornasier, himself the son of a master glassblower, always had a passion for glassmaking. Curvy lines, fragile touches turn this exquisite material into a tangible process of artistic thought. Fornasier developed the idea of “Murano sottovuoto” (literally vacuum-packed Murano) after he saw a Murano glass goblet – an entirely hand-made piece of great executional complexity – sold at an insultingly low price.
Fornasier wanted the goblet to win back its original value. He decontextualized it by putting back into the glass furnace. The goblet turned out slimmer, weaker, ready to be fixed in time in its current state – small imperfections and all, which make each piece unique. The chandelier is a homage to a centuries-old tradition. The refined artmaking presents, before our eyes, a new perspective on art and on Murano itself: flattened, compressed under a myriad problems and systemic fragility. Fabio Fornasier vacuum-sealed glass art to preserve it forever and show his unconditional love for it. His chandelier is a modern object of design, yet the product of ancestral wisdom.

Fabio Fornasier was born in Venice on August 16, 1963. He learned the art of glassmaking in the glass furnace of his father, Luigi, where he was able to develop his talent for drawing and an innate ability to turn glass into art chandeliers. He became a full-fledged master glassblower at a young age and opened his own glass furnace in Murano, where he specialized in chandeliers in both traditional and modern styles.
A curious, inspired artist, Fornasier teaches in several glass art schools worldwide: the Glass Programme at the Royal College of Art in London, the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington, DC, and the Abate Zanetti School of Glass Art in Murano, Venice. An aesthete and a versatile artist, Fornasier develops traditional techniques and boldly experiments with new, modern ones. Over the years, his career has been acknowledged with official recognitions and awards.

The Venice Glass Weeks Festival, the Celebration of Glassmaking Art in Venice

The Venice Glass Week is an international festival founded in 2017 to celebrate, support and promote the art of glass. The Venice Glass Week 2019 will take place from 7th to 15th September.
The festival is promoted and organised by Comune di Venezia, Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Fondazione Giorgio Cini – LE STANZE DEL VETRO, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti and Consorzio Promovetro Murano.

Caffè Florian has been promoting contemporary artistic languages for many years, devoting its Halls to masters whose creative outcomes are the result of a profound exploration and comparison with the ancestral material represented by glass blowing, the alchemical fusion of sand and fire. Many different glass artists and their glass works were hosted inside the Florian: Cristiano Bianchin, Yoichi Ohira, Toots Zinsky, Richard Marquis, Massimo Nordio, Michele Burato, Maria Grazia Rosin, Mario and Antonio Dei Rossi, Silvano Rubino, Fabio Fornasier, Lucio Bubacco, Davide Salvadore.