At the fourth Homo Faber Biennial curated by Es Devlin, the historic Murano furnace reactivates its archive through the Campana Brothers’ Rivivo, transforming glass memory into a radical contemporary dialogue.
From September 1 to 30, 2026, the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice becomes the stage for the fourth edition of the Homo Faber Biennial. Curated by British artist and stage designer Es Devlin under the overarching theme An Island of Light, this year’s exhibition investigates contemporary craft as an illuminated continuum of human talent. Within this framework at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Murano glassmaker VENINI presents a statement on material memory and forward-looking research: the return of the Rivivo Sculpture, conceived in 2010 by the Campana Brothers.
Raw Matter and Archive: The Genesis of Rivivo
Originally envisioned as a sculptural fountain, Rivivo distills the creative tension between raw matter and refined craft. Humberto and Fernando Campana constructed the monumental piece by juxtaposing cotissi—monolithic blocks of raw, unrefined glass extracted directly from furnace crucibles—with recognizable, historic glass fragments salvaged from the manufacture’s production. By assembling these remnants into an expressive new whole, the work reinterprets the Murano atelier’s identity, moving beyond static historical reverence into an active, tactile investigation of form.
A Century of Visionaries on Murano
This curatorial gesture mirrors VENINI’s broader role within modern design history. Founded in 1921 on the Fondamenta dei Vetrai by Milanese lawyer Paolo Venini and Venetian antique dealer Giacomo Cappellin, the furnace reshaped twentieth-century decorative arts. The maison established lasting dialogues with visionary figures—from early creative direction under Carlo Scarpa, Napoleone Martinuzzi, and Fulvio Bianconi, to post-war and contemporary milestones with Gio Ponti, Ettore Sottsass, Alessandro Mendini, Tapio Wirkkala, Tadao Ando, and Peter Marino.
Material Mastery: 125 Colors and Bespoke Light
Operating 14 active furnaces on Murano, the manufacture maintains an unmatched proprietary chromatic palette of 125 distinct glass formulations. Today, integrated into the Damiani Group, the atelier spans two specialized divisions: Art Glass, dedicated to sculptural collectible vessels, and Art Light, producing monumental bespoke lighting installations for international architecture.
Living Heritage and Provenance
The historical weight of this savoir-faire is preserved within the VENINI Museum archive—a repository housing 45,000 original technical drawings, 10,000 vintage photographs, and 4,000 historic works. Beyond institutional collections worldwide, from New York’s MoMA and The Met to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, VENINI’s mastery commands enduring auction provenance, highlighted by Thomas Stearns’ 1962 La Sentinella di Venezia, which achieved USD 737,000.
At Homo Faber 2026, VENINI’s showcase under the guidance of Es Devlin demonstrates that an archive achieves its greatest potency not in quiet preservation, but when its fragments ignite radical contemporary craft.
Photo Credits: Lucrezia Roda