Boca Raton, FL (2025) – The Boca Raton Museum of Art presents the return of its popular Glasstress exhibition series that brings together internationally-renowned artists with master glassmakers of Venice to push the boundaries of glass art.
Glasstress Boca Raton 2025 is the Museum’s third iteration of the exhibition, on view April 23 through October 26, 2025. Contributions from artists such as Ai Weiwei, Sean Scully, and María Magdalena Campos-Pons are among a diverse range of glass art on display, from small and delicate to monumental.
The Glasstress project was launched in 2009 as a collateral event at the Venice Biennale, an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice. Glasstress brings contemporary artists from around the globe to collaborate with its master glassmakers, many of whom are exploring glass as a medium for the first time. By blending centuries-old techniques with contemporary artistic visions, the project highlights the enduring prestige of glass as a fine art and integrates Murano’s rich traditions into the modern art world.
Irish artist Sean Scully, known for lush abstract paintings, turned to sculpture as an artist-in-residence at the Berengo studio. His Venice Stack is a totemic tower consisting of handmade glass slabs of vibrant colors measuring nearly eight feet tall. The German artist Thomas Schütte, whose work was the subject of a 2024 retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, will contribute an installation of similarly vividly colored urns.
Afro-Cuban artist and MacArthur Fellow María Magdalena Campos-Pons’ interest in the forms and colors of butterflies is reflected in two works: a mobile dedicated to the memory of Breonna Taylor and a more recent work, a stabile titled Reservoir for Love that evokes both human tears and insect wings. Laure Prouvost, winner of the prestigious Turner Prize, represented France in the 2019 Venice Biennale and has since collaborated regularly with Berengo’s artisans in Murano. Her installation of aquatic birds situated in a tropical landscape is her homage to our endangered natural environment.
Another spectacular work in the exhibition is a monumental chandelier by internationally renowned Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, as well as his mock-heroic self-portrait bust. Fiona Banner also addresses scale. Her scaffold—a piece of equipment common to construction sites as well as museums, where Banner often creates wall murals—is made of fragile glass instead of metal, foretelling catastrophe if climbed. Another large work is an 8 × 8 ft. brilliantly colored glass mural with tarot characters and occult symbols by Mexican Surrealist Pedro Friedeberg.
As a special feature of this iteration of Glasstress, the Boca Raton Museum of Art has commissioned Florida artist Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A) to create his first work in glass with Berengo’s glass experts especially for this exhibition. It is a radiantly colored mirror, titled Echoes of Silence in the Galactic Garden, featuring complex floral patterns and spectacular gold embellishments.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue and is curated by Kathleen Goncharov, Senior Curator of the Boca Raton Museum of Art.
Exhibition Details:
- Exhibition Name: Glasstress Boca Raton 2025
- Exhibition Dates: April 24, 2025 - October 12, 2025
- Location: Boca Raton Museum of Art, 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, FL 33432
For more information about the Glasstress exhibition, the 75th-anniversary celebrations, membership, and admission, contact the Boca Raton Museum of Art at 561-392-2500 or visit online at bocamuseum.org. Join the Museum’s email list online for a sneak preview of more exciting events that will be added to the 2025 season, plus invitations to exclusive member experiences.
Photography:
Glasstress: Boca Raton Museum of Art (LINK to DropBox)
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About The Boca Raton Museum of Art
Founded by artists in 1950 as the Art Guild of Boca Raton, the Boca Raton Museum of Art has evolved into a vital cultural resource. The Museum's original building on Palmetto Park Road now serves as the Museum's Art School, nestled within a 3-acre sculpture park. In 2001, the Museum was granted land in Mizner Park, a mixed-use area in downtown Boca Raton. Designed by Donald Singer, the current Museum facility, with its bold volumes and emblematic design, reflects the spirit of Addison Mizner's Mediterranean Revival architecture of the 1920s that provided an indelible mark on Boca Raton. Located in Palm Beach County, the Museum attracts visitors from a wide range of regions, with nearly 50% being cultural tourists from drive markets or out-of-state, underscoring the appeal of its reputation, quality of programs, and supporting the Museum’s mission to be a vital cultural resource dedicated to the creative life.
About Fondazione Berengo
Fondazione Berengo was founded by Adriano Berengo to strengthen his mission of marrying the Murano glass-making tradition with contemporary art and reviving an ancient industry. Since that time, his studio has collaborated with nearly 400 artists from all over the globe. The foundation seeks to achieve this goal through educational initiatives and an interdisciplinary program of exhibitions and special projects in collaboration with internationally acclaimed artists, designers, and architects. In 2016, it sponsored the first retrospective of the late Dame Zaha Hadid. In 2017, Fondazione Berengo forged a partnership with the European Institute for Human Rights and Democracy to explore ways to use art to raise awareness of human rights issues - www.fondazioneberengo.org.
About Adriano Berengo
Adriano Berengo is a passionate and visionary Venetian whose mission is to revitalize the ancient tradition of Murano glass, encourage technical innovation, and encourage cutting-edge contemporary artists to experiment with a new medium. In 1989 Berengo acquired an abandoned glass furnace in Murano, and a few years later established Fondazione Berengo and his Glasstress project, an innovative program whose mission is to encourage the medium of glass within the world of contemporary art. This project continues a tradition begun by Peggy Guggenheim and artist and master glassmaker Egidio Constantino, who invited artists such as Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall to work with glass in Venice in the 1960s.
