Consisting of over 300 works, the exhibition reconstructs Carlo Scarpa’s career in the years when he was artistic director of the Venini glassworks, from 1932 to 1947.
The material on show also includes prototypes, one-off items, original drawings and designs, plus period photographs and archive documents. The exhibition explores the significance and importance of Carlo Scarpa’s glass design experience in his overall work. During his Murano period, Scarpa further developed his interests in experimentation and craftsmanship and the show thus provides a great opportunity to compare his work as a glass and furniture designer and his architecture. The exhibition itinerary includes a video room showing two documentary films on the relationship between the Venini glassworks and Carlo Scarpa. The films were produced by Pentagram Stiftungand made by director Gian Luigi Calderone, who had previously made Casa Venini, a film about the history of the Venini-Santillana family. The first film, a fifteenminute documentary entitled A Carlo Scarpa e ai suoi infiniti possibili (1984), shows images of glass objects designed by Carlo Scarpa. The images are accompanied by the music of Luigi Nono, composed in 1984 with the same title to commemorate his friend. In the film the musicologist Stefano Bassanese illustrates the structure of the music and the affinities between the designer and the composer. A second documentary Carlo Scarpa, fuori dal paradiso (2012) describes Scarpa and his glass through personal accounts by those who knew him well, such as former students and, especially, his son Tobia. This onehour film will be shown twice a day and is on sale in the exhibition bookshop.
As part of Le Stanze del Vetro project, the director Gian Luigi Calderone will make a film for each future exhibition as a way of enhancing and complementing the show and its themes.