A unique collaboration between the Berengo Glass Studio, Venice, the London College of Fashion and the Wallace Collection, featuring the work of major contemporary artists and designers, many using glass as a medium for the first time.

White Light/White Heat will include works by Ron Arad, Miroslav Balka, Fiona Banner, Boudicca, Mat Collishaw, Tony Cragg, Tracy Emin, Mona Hatoum, Michael Joo, Shirazeh Houshiary, Kris Martin, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Cornelia Parker, Cai Guo Qiang, Thomas Schütte, Conrad Shawcross, Joana Vasconcelos and many others. This is a unique collaboration between The Berengo Glass Studio, Venice, London College of Fashion, where work will also be exhibited, and the Wallace Collection.

This exhibition will feature selected works from a project created for the 55th Venice Biennale entitled Glasstress: White Light/White Heat. Some of the Murano glass exhibited will take inspiration from our important collection of Venetian glass and continue the tradition of inviting contemporary artists to create work directly influenced by the collections, providing the visitor with fresh and relevant interpretations of these works of art.

Glass is a magical and less-exploited medium for artists to work with because unlike any other material it has such a vast range of possible appearances - it can be bright or dull, coloured, transparent, mirrored and metallic or take any number of surface treatments and textures. Hot glass can be incandescent and glow bright orange yet still be transparent when it’s molten. Alchemy played an important part in the history of glassmaking and glass coloring processes. Glass has been worked for so many centuries that a huge variety of techniques exist to produce a vast range of glasses with differing properties that offer artists fantastic possibilities to create work. White Light/ White Heat fuses together the vision, creativity and freedom of a group of artists with diverse specialisms, ranging from sculpture, to fashion and filmmaking, with the expertise and artistry of the renowned Berengo Glass Studio in Venice.

The invited artists will respond to the theme of light and heat, the components of fire, the destructive/creative element linked to the formation of the universe and primal matter from chaos. The energy from the sun’s rays provides the light and heat essential to all life forms and survival on this planet. Light and heat are fundamental to glass making - light is integral to our perception of glass while heat is required to shape it.

James Putnam, Senior Research Fellow, Exhibitions, at the London College of Fashion, the curator of White Light/White Heat, will be working closely with Adriano Berengo, President of Berengo Glass Studio to produce the exhibition. The involvement of the London College of Fashion reveals the common ground shared by fashion and fine art and the blurring of the boundaries between these two creative practices.

We hope that visitors will take this chance to experience both the work of the these established contemporary artists and the Wallace Collection’s own pieces in a new light, and, in turn, appreciate glass not merely as decorative and functional, but as a vibrant medium for contemporary art.