Both intrinsically delicate, glass and paper make for an artful display. Venetian glassware firm Giberto Venezia commissioned whimsical paper artist JoAnn Tan to create a site-specific installation for Venice Glass Week. From Saturday through Sept. 20, Tan’s intricate world of ornate ornaments and fauna created with meticulous folds and swirls will be on display and in dialogue with Giberto Venezia’s Cracklè vases collection.
For the glassware collection, Giberto Venezia’s founder Giberto Arrivabene Valenti Gonzaga collaborated with master glassmaker Gianni Seguso and curator Cristina Beltrami. They drew inspiration from ghiaccio (Italian for ice), a celebrated Renaissance Murano technique. This process involves plunging hot glass into cold water, creating delicate surface fractures that resemble ice. Each piece is further distinguished by the presence of a teardrop detail, an iconic hallmark of Arrivabene’s designs.
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Enhancing the collection, Tan created fanciful stands recalling Renaissance ornamentation, part of a larger display based on a fantastical world of creatures where the caterpillar is protagonist and a symbol of metamorphosis, which often occurs in her work.
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“I am particularly interested in transforming people’s perception of these unsightly subjects by applying the same intense craftsmanship usually reserved for ‘beautiful’ objects,” said Tan, who told WWD in April that her material of choice is high-content cotton paper, which feels like fabric.
The Giberto Venezia project is an extension of a concept created for contemporary art fair Miart in Milan in April, for which Tan crafted 14-cm-long bamboo yarn knitted slugs, a tribute to some of nature’s most nuanced characters.
Tan, born in Kuala Lumpur, founded her studio in 2010 with businesswoman Cilla Winbladh. Her background includes an influential internship at Moschino, where she was exposed to the late Franco Moschino’s unbridled and bold fashion ethos. She studied at the Chicago School of the Art Institute, focusing on cartoon animation, before venturing into the world of fashion.
Tan has built a diverse portfolio of clients that balances corporate projects and more creative endeavors. She has collaborated with some of the world’s leading names, including Hermès, Dior, Fendi, Loro Piana, Ferragamo and Pucci.
Among her most intricate pieces is a Hermès Birkin bag with a built-in maze made of painted wood. It was displayed in the Hermès store window in Stockholm in 2018 and represented the cluttered nature of a woman’s handbag.
After much success, Tan wanted to expose her work to a wider public, particularly collectors of high-end art and design. Late last year, she opened JoAnn Tan atelier, set in a 19th-century villa on Milan’s Viale Lombardia.