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In the Studio: Ai Weiwei: Glass artistry

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Ai Weiwei: Glass artistry

11/10/2022 GMT

BBC World Service - In the Studio, Ai Weiwei: Glass artistry

The artist-activist works with glass for the first time to create an immense chandelier

Ai Weiwei collaborates with Adriano Berengo to create an immense glass chandelier, in a project designed to “talk about death in order to celebrate life”.

Glass: a functional material and silent witness to our daily lives, so unnoticed we’re usually looking straight through it. But in Venice, glass is an art form, and Ai Weiwei’s latest work is designed to make you look.

Having mastered many mediums – wood, marble, even social media - the artist-activist is now turning his hand to glass. Through a collaboration with Adriano Berengo, on the glass-making island of Murano, he’s creating an immense chandelier, made up of over 2000 glass bones, organs and other surprising objects. Set to be displayed at the Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore, La Commedia Umana is Ai’s attempt to “talk about death in order to celebrate life”.

Join Alice McKee in Venice, speaking with Ai Weiwei and the Berengo Studios team, as she follows the life cycle of La Commedia Umana, from the furnace to the church.

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