Six meetings for children and parents, discovering Venetian craftsmanship and stimulating creativity, manual dexterity, and the imagination

Many twentieth century-artists examined and explored the relationship between art and craftsmanship, trying their hands at creating objects for common use. These eclectic figures, experimentalists and innovators, played the role of the artist-demiurge by drawing inspiration from traditions of craftsmanship, in a continuous dialogue between discipline and technical knowledge.

Between 1933 and 1952 Alexander Calder created over one thousand eight hundred items of jewelry, thanks to his mastering of metalwork, a skill which can also be observed in his mobiles and wire sculptures. In 1938, Yves Tanguy created earrings which are miniature paintings on a shell. A few years prior, in 1919, Walter Gropius founded the Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar art school in Weimar, Germany. His aim was to promote an innovative teaching methodology that sought to bridge the gap between fine art and craftsmanship by integrating artistic research with industrial production. The school’s art courses were taught by artists including Vasily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, while Joseph Albers directed the glass workshop. As well as working with glass and metal, Albers designed furniture and experimented with typography. His wife, Anni Albers, attended Klee’s classes in design aimed for the weaving workshop. She created wall tapestries and curtains for the Teater Café Altes in Dessau, and curtains for a theatre in Opole. She became one of the main female artists of her generation, and perhaps the twentieth century’s most influential textile designer. In 1947, Pablo Picasso developed a passion for ceramics, so much so that he created four thousand pottery works, mostly in Vallarius, the “city of potters,” on the Côte d’Azur. Later, between 1957 and 1967, painter, ceramics artist, and sculptor, Lucio Fontana, renowned for his slashed and pierced canvasses, designed jewelry—rings, bracelets, and brooches—with slashes, holes and precious stones, creating unique items of goldsmithery.

From printing techniques, to papermaking, waxwork, textiles and jewelry, the six meetings of our Hands-on! program invite participants to use their hands and sharpen their sense of touch, challenging their manual dexterity in creative and knowledge-building activities.

Hands-on! is also a rare and unique opportunity for families to join in on a journey of discovery that uncovers hidden artisanal workshops, ancient tools, materials, and techniques that are still highly relevant, and little-known creative crafts and professions.