The Venice Glass Week 2026
A guide to “secret” exhibitions among the furnaces of Murano and the palaces of Venice
From September 12 to 20, the lagoon celebrates the art of glassmaking with The Venice Glass Week 2026. Discover the guide to exhibitions across Murano and Venice that best capture the "secret" spirit of refined beauty and extraordinary craftsmanship.
Every autumn, the Venetian lagoon comes alive with the magic of The Venice Glass Week 2026—running from September 12 to 20—celebrating the art of glassmaking, a centuries-old tradition rooted in the history of the island of Murano.
It was in 1291 that the Serenissima Republic of Venice decreed the relocation of all the city’s active furnaces to Murano: a move designed both to prevent fires that threatened Venice’s predominantly wooden structures and to keep a close watch on the master glassmakers, thereby preventing the leakage of production secrets.
Let’s explore some “secret-style” highlights, ranging from events linked to The Venice Glass Week to other unmissable exhibitions taking place at the same time.
Murano boasts numerous firsts: it is the world’s first industrial district, the birthplace of the invention of the glass mirror in 1540 and of filigree glass in 1550, as well as the first avant-garde laboratory for international contemporary art dedicated to this material.
Stops in Murano: The Soul of Glass
Berengo Art Space Foundation – GLASSTRESS
Located within a decommissioned late-19th-century furnace in the heart of Murano, the Berengo space grew out of a pioneering project launched in the 1980s by Adriano Berengo—a vision that has inspired leading international artists, from Ai Weiwei to Tony Cragg, to fall in love with glass.
Here and at Palazzo Ca’ Tron in Venice, Berengo has invited painters, sculptors, and creatives—ranging from Judy Chicago to Qi Zhuo—to participate in GLASSTRESS, a collateral event of the Venice Biennale. The initiative offers a setting steeped in history for bold sculptures that push the material far beyond the boundaries of decorative design.
For more information (free admission): berengo.com
Seguso Vetri d’Arte
Founded by a family with a glassmaking lineage documented in Murano since 1397—the oldest still active on the island—Seguso Vetri d’Arte revolutionized glass design in the 1930s under the artistic direction of Archimede Seguso through the use of innovative techniques. Visiting this space offers access to a living history, where master craftsmen still blow sculptural forms—including large-scale pieces—that have won more *Compasso d’Oro* awards than any other in the field of glass art and are featured in over 100 museums worldwide.
For The Venice Glass Week 2026, Seguso Vetri d’Arte presents a series of works by Pierpaolo Seguso—*Equilibrio instabile* (Unstable Equilibrium) and *Pensieri che non ti sai spiegare* (Thoughts You Cannot Explain)—engaging in a dialogue between material, thought, and the human condition.
For more information (free admission with reservation): seguso.com
Nason Moretti – Murano Déco Exhibition (1923–1949)
An exhibition dedicated to Art Déco creations by Nason Moretti opens on Tuesday the 15th. Founded in 1925, the firm immediately distinguished itself within the Murano glassmaking scene through its ability to break away from 19th-century classical models and embrace 20th-century avant-garde styles. Nason Moretti was among the first glassworks to experiment with color, cataloging dozens of unique shades and winning the Compasso d’Oro award in 1955.
The exhibition traces the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, showcasing how Art Déco geometric lines, goblets, and bowls redefined the era’s most stylish table settings.
For more information (free admission): www.nasonmoretti.com
Venice Stops: Noble Palaces and Private Art Collections
Palazzo Ca’ Donà – ORBITA Exhibition
The ORBITA exhibition is a unique, unmissable event offering a one-month opportunity to step inside the private residence of an art patron—a home recently renovated after four years of work. ORBITA is a cultural platform created by ETEREO—an architecture and interior design studio based in Dubai and Milan—to provide access to exclusive residences and immersive experiences centered on art and design.
The inaugural edition launched at Palazzo Ca’ Donà (open until October 3, 2026) in collaboration with Nilufar, which created a dialogue between works by iconic figures such as Bethan Laura Wood, Osanna Visconti, Vikram Goyal, Gabriella Crespi, Allegra Hicks, Gio Ponti, Venini, Christian Pellizzari, and Ico Parisi, and Brun Fine Art that further enriched the narrative with paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and furnishings by masters including Lucio Fontana, Fausto Melotti, Pietro Melandri, Francesco Hayez, Corrado Cagli, and Carlo Zauli. Rounding out the experience are extraordinary works by sculptor Massimiliano Pelletti—who reinterprets the classical canon through marble pieces with a contemporary sensibility—and AnotherView, creators of immersive video installations that translate the spirit of travel and specific locations into moving images.
For more information (free admission with reservation): orbitacollectible.com
Dries Van Noten Foundation – The Only True Protest Is Beauty Exhibition
Nearby, the Dries Van Noten Foundation presents *The Only True Protest Is Beauty*, an exhibition running until October 3, 2026, that celebrates craftsmanship as a form of expression.
Within the halls of Palazzo Pisani Moretta, works spanning jewelry, design, fashion, art, photography, glass, ceramics, and material experimentation transcend disciplinary boundaries to engage in a dialogue with the palazzo’s architecture. Here, beauty is not a static ideal but a questioning presence—a process of inquiry where perception awakens and craftsmanship reveals itself as a radical act of connection.
For more information (admission prior membership): https://fondazionedriesvannoten.org/
The Secret Garden
Irene Cattaneo’s The Secret Garden—inspired by the 1993 film of the same name—transforms a private Venetian garden into an immersive sculptural installation where memory, literature, and material imagination intertwine. Presented by Galerie Gastou and Lo Studio – Nadja Romain, the exhibition brings together works in bronze, onyx, marble, and glass, with a special focus on Murano glass as a luminous and poetic medium.
At Calle Pesaro 3922, visitors can admire many of Irene’s beautiful works, including the Snowdrop blown-glass lamps and the swing inspired by Effi Briest.
For more information (free admission with reservation): lostudio-nadjaromain.com
Galleria Bubacco – Apollinea Exhibition
Located just steps away from the Teatro La Fenice, Galleria Bubacco is a sanctuary dedicated to the centuries-old “lampworking” technique of Maestro Lucio Bubacco, renowned for his human figures, animals, and mythological creatures crafted with a precision regarding musculature and proportion that is almost painterly in quality.
For The Venice Glass Week 2026, the gallery presents the Apollinea exhibition—the perfect opportunity to admire the Maestro’s works inspired by Greek mythology and its deities.
For more information (free admission): www.lucio-bubacco.com
Murano Illuminates the World
To celebrate the tenth edition of The Venice Glass Week, Murano Illuminates the World will take place this year from September 13 to November 1, 2026. For the occasion, St. Mark’s Square has been transformed into a sprawling exhibition trail where glass engages in a dialogue with the city’s art and architecture.
Beneath the arches of the Procuratie Vecchie, twelve original light installations offer the public an innovative take on one of the most iconic objects of the Venetian tradition: the chandelier, created by distinguished figures including Norman Foster, Arthur Duff, and Chiara Dynys.
For other inspirations: theveniceglassweek.com
The Secret
To protect the strict economic monopoly on Murano glass, in the 15th century the Serenissima’s dreaded Council of Ten decreed that no master glassmaker could leave the Republic’s borders without authorization, imposing the death penalty on anyone attempting to emigrate to sell production secrets to foreign powers. There was, however, a single unwritten exception: a special dispensation granted to anyone capable of crafting a crystal mirror of exceptional purity intended as a gift for Europe’s sovereigns. The formula for “cristallino” (crystal-clear) Murano glass—invented by Angelo Barovier around 1450 through the purification of plant ashes from the *Salsola soda* plant—remained a state secret guarded so fiercely that when the French minister Colbert succeeded in persuading some Murano artisans to move to Paris to found the *Manufacture royale de glaces de miroirs*, two of them were mysteriously poisoned with arsenic before they could reveal the glass’s exact chemical composition to King Louis XIV.
