Irene Cattaneo
Alber(g)o, 2024
Aluminium, hand blown murano glass
100x115x192 cm
Copyright The Artist
In Venice one is much more likely to find a hotel (albergo) than a tree (albero). In this work Cattaneo conflates the two, disrupting the Italian word for tree in...
In Venice one is much more likely to find a hotel (albergo) than a tree (albero). In this work Cattaneo conflates the two, disrupting the Italian word for tree in the title with a transformative g. There is a similar hybridity within the very structure of the illuminated sculpture, which combines the functional form of a classic Venetian street lamp with elements from the natural world thus freezing the ephemeral form of clouds and locking them into surreal buds. The buds then bloom in handblown Murano glass from the tips of a knotted cast aluminium trunk.