The leitmotif of the whole show is the very use of this material, glass, used by the artists in the most diverse ways. Hélène de Franchis says, Glass has always been a material that fascinates me. I have always loved to collect glass objects of every kind, with a preference for sandblasted glass. But every variety of this material really fascinates me. So the idea of involving a heterogeneous group of artists to show their ideas about this material started from a curiosity to know how this material is used in contemporary art. It is interesting to see how each of them has interpreted this challenge: some of the artists I chose have used it with great acumen, given that glass is the favourite medium for a large part of their work; others were not greatly aware of it because glass is a non-exclusive detail for making their works. For example, “3 Coffee Cups” by Stuart Arends. Arends is an artist who really loves recuperating old objects found in markets, and this work is made from an item of common use: a coffee cup. In this case the choice of a ‘glass’ cup was quite by chance, but thanks to the transparency of the material it is possible to glimpse a trickle of the artist’s favourite material: wax. His choice was of the form of the cup and not on the selection of the material. This “unknowing” use of glass has, however, made the work more complete, also according to the artist who only in a second moment realised there was this particularity. The greater part of the artists in the show uses and juxtaposes glass to other materials. For some of them this happens for the first time, while for others the use of the material is only one element that leads to the completion of the work, as has been said for Arends. In yet other cases, glass is, instead, the distinctive trait of the artist’s work. This is the case of Costas Varotsos, exhibiting for the first time at Studio la Città, who has a long experience of working glass, a material that for years has characterised his output. In the show are some works from the series “Orizzonti” that meld together iron and glass sheets to create a symbiosis between the sky and the work. As Varotsos himself said in an interview with Giorgio Bonomi, The material “glass” arrived like a container of space that, through temporal stratification, recreated for me a new space-time balance. In Altrove, Acque, Magma, Nebule, Giorgio Vigna, an artist who experiments with glass, unites Murano glass to such metals as copper and silver to confer an extraordinary glow to the works. For more than thirty years Vigna has undertaken constant research into the transformation of the material into unusual forms: earth, water, fire, air – the primary elements of nature are explored in depth to the point of revealing their hidden possibilities, on the threshold between reality and imagination. For the Argentinean artist Marcela Cernadas too, her use of glass is not a novelty but, rather, is the utilisation of a material full of allusions and meanings. Two works are in the show: Cenacolo and Souvenir, both made from blown Venetian glass. The former, a composition of thirteen goblets on a marble table, is a clear reference to Christian iconography, while the latter, the rearing horse used in Venice as a souvenir of the city, seems to immerse itself into and rise from its own base, following the movement of memories, as the very title of the work suggests. In Dadi e Nastri and Senza Titolo Luigi Carboni exploits the circular geometric form of the glass which is modelled into spheres like lenses and the constellations of a microcosm where the circle represents both the earth and the celestial vault. In the show are two works by Alberto Garutti, Orizzonti and Senza Titolo: here glass is used for an absolutely conceptual research. The colour of the glass, enclosed in a wooden frame, is the same as the wall that the artist used to gaze at, while looking through the window of his own room. Herbert Hamak has always used resin for his works: his is a study of colour and its interaction with various surfaces. In the show he deals with glass and exhibits a large sheet of it, that almost seems a palette, and an unusual vase specifically made for the occasion. Paolo Icaro has decided to exhibit a very minimalist work from 1983, Clear Peace, consisting of rectangular sheets of glass in an A4 format and fixed to the wall with nails; there is also a small work made ad hoc where he has used his habitual materials: glass and plaster. Igino Legnaghi has made a journey into the past to evoke his ’73 exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre, London, where his sculptures in steel, anticorodal aluminium, and iron were titled Lettere agli Amici. For the new small works in glass in this show the title is slightly different: Cartoline agli Amici, but the allusion to geometric forms is the same. The small coloured pieces of glass are chosen in a completely instinctive manner by the artist, and the impulse is often guided by the memory of a place or persons dear to the artist. The young artist Esther Mathis returns to Studio la Città with three pieces: Fluid Boundaries, Position, Protection and Projection and Untitled. Mathis has always been attracted by glass and its oxymoronic nature, and these can clearly be seen in works where metal and cement structures are contrasted to the fragility of glass. There is a sculpture in pink glass, a colour much loved by the artist, Luigi Ontani, who here makes use of glass to evoke the transparency of watercolour, a technique widely utilised by him in his work to unite dreams and autobiographical references. Roberto Pugliese, instead, is a sound artist who uses glass as a sounding board for his compositions. In his installation Liquide Emergenze Future, exhibited in Venice during the last Biennale, the artist started from thoughts about the rising sea level to make a work consisting of ampoules of suspended blown glass, inside which resonate speakers immersed in water.