Forms of drinking

“Starting from a function that must 
remain useful and simple, letting people drink, 
during its evolution the glass has found 
interest and additions that have elevated 
it to the object of design stimulus,
both creative and productive, 
yet still well anchored 
to its ‘simple’ nature.”
— Elisa Testori
 
           The glass at the centre of an exhibition, both as a design theme and an object of everyday life.
 
Held within this brief but comprehensive concept is the introduction to “Forms of drinking”, the exhibition project curated by Elisa Testori which will open on 23 April 2022 at 6 pm in the halls of InGalleria, the Art Gallery of Punta Conterie devoted to the narration and dissemination of the world of glass through a variety of projects and objects, styles, geographies, techniques and mediums.
 
The fifth exhibition promoted and partly produced by InGalleria, “Forms of drinking” is no exception. It was born in Murano but takes a wide gaze to embrace other places and other techniques combined in homage to the theme of the drinking glass, intended and shown both as an object of use and as an artifact. 
 
Perfectly divided into two sections — one fully contemporary with nine glasses designed for the occasion by nine international designers and made in Murano; and one relating to the recent history of the drinking glass, the twentieth century, which displays a reference lexicon in which projects by international designers and Italian, Muranese and European producers converge — the exhibition illustrates, through about fifty “forms of drinking”, some of the possible and valid ways of dealing with and shaping a small object of everyday life.
 
Lorenzo Damiani, Giulio Iacchetti, Astrid Luglio, Martinelli Venezia, mischer'traxler studio, Luca Nichetto, Philippe Nigro, 
Ionna Vautrin, Zaven the nine designers, each invited to design a different type of glass: the water-wine-digestive set, a glass dedicated to water, a glass for “house” wine, the water and wine ‘couple’, the beer mug, the cocktail glass, the champagne glass, the whisky glass and the tipetto, the Venetian goblet, as a tribute to the place where this project was born.
 
The nine designers involved have generated new “table” ideas, worthy propositions and inventions capable of touching —  so in the words of the curator — “the habits and rituals around the object, the value of its content, the formal exercise, the meaning of a gesture, the material and its manufacturing process, the construction and (re)definition of the known components”. All supported by the partnering skills of the glass masters and the technical skills of the Murano glassworks and workshops.
 
Alongside these, a selection of pieces taken from the recent history of the drinking glass, the twentieth century, as examples from a reference language developed and established over time. These are glasses in series, small series or "out of series" that illustrate the history and stories of some stars among the glass-masters, districts and companies that have confronted and challenged the formal limits, those of the vitreous raw material, experimenting and innovating with techniques and processes without ever being unfaithful to the primary use of this small object.
 
The few and specific design constraints of the glass, in fact, have found fertile ground among industrial designers, artists and master craftsmen, stimulating very different outputs, not only in terms of production, but also of use: daily, for the big occasion or for collectors. Here then are the names of a wide creative range that has been able to combine design and production know-how in the best possible way on display: Guido Balsamo Stella, Achille Castiglioni, Aldo Cibic, Joe Colombo, Piero Fornasetti, Kaj Franck, Johanna Grawunder, Rikke Hagen, Joseph Hoffmann, Richard Hutten, Adolf Loos, 
Vico Magistretti, Angelo Mangiarotti, Alessandro Mendini, Carlo Moretti, Yoichi Ohira, Peter Pelzel, Gio Ponti, Roberto Sambonet, Alvaro Siza, Ettore Sottsass, Lino Tagliapietra, Matteo Thun, Carlo Tosi “Caramea”, Tapio Wirkkala, Marco Zanuso.
 
 

 

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