Alessandro Cuccato & Alessandra Piazza

Vetroricerca Studios

Glass sculptor

©Vetroricerca

©Giorgio Benni courtesy Museo Nazionale Romano

©Vetroricerca

©Giampaolo Babetto

Challenging the limits of glass

Alessandro and Alessandra have been a creative duo since the 1990s
They have always been very involved with teaching their craft
Their works are exhibited in important museums

Both "glass sick", as they say, Alessandro Cuccato and Alessandra Piazza continue an over three-decade-long collaboration to this day, which has seen them explore the world of glass in all its facets. In their workshop, founded in 1996 in Bolzano, called Vetroricerca (glass research), after years dedicated mainly to teaching, they began to explore the limits of the most advanced technical and expressive experiments. In collaborating with artists, galleries and designers at an international level, Alessandro and Alessandra have created works exhibited in prominent museums and exhibitions for public and private clients. Vetroricerca has thus become a point of reference worldwide, an atelier that creates glass works, sculptures, stained glass windows, tableware and glass jewelery.

Interview

©Vetroricerca

©Vetroricerca

Are collaborations important in your work?: Alessandro: Most of our work is commissioned and we collaborate closely with many artists and galleries. This gives us the opportunity to carry out experimentation and explore the technical and expressive limits of an inexhaustible material. When designing with the artist we have to interpret and translate their thoughts into glass.
What impact has teaching had on your work?: Alessandra: It has been essential. In our sector, sharing is true wealth. In addition to the satisfaction of having trained dozens of glass professionals, teaching the techniques of artistic, architectural and industrial glass has allowed us to continue learning, researching and enriching our background.
What do you love most about your job?: Alessandra: The moment you open the kiln and find out what happened! Alessandro: Installing the finished work is also fundamental, it is the moment in which the glass artwork is subjected to light. Light is the creator of everything that happens, after the long wait – there are jobs that last months.
Have you developed any particular new techniques?: Alessandro: Above all we continue to think about what has been done before us, according to a centuries-old tradition. But perhaps over the years our contribution consists in having specialised in making moulds capable of holding large quantities of glass. Alessandra: We have experimented with many techniques for varied projects.

Alessandro Cuccato & Alessandra Piazza are master artisans: they began their career in 1990 and they started teaching in 1996