The MAR presents Abyssal Creatures, an installation by artist Francesco Cavaliere that becomes part of the museum’s collection. An imaginative universe takes shape through three extraordinary blown glass sound sculptures, created with the production support of Xing and the support of Italian Council (2023).
A project developing over three years, Abyssal Creatures is a fantastical saga that moves between alchemy and science fiction, reworking the relationship between matter and nature in a poetic key.
The three sculptures – Sàbanas I, Aliquomàs and Enquomanàsc – are made of blown Murano glass in shades of green, orange and yellow. They recall abyssal forms, transparent animals and unknown plants, fused with archetypes of the human unconscious. Not only visual works, but also sound instruments: bodies that vibrate, resonate and “live” thanks to the artist’s original composition, which spreads within them like sap.
Abyssal Creatures traveled between 2023 and 2025 to different international stops: from Porto (Serralves), Bologna (Academy of Fine Arts), New York (ISSUE Project Room, UrbanGlass), to Turin (GAM and Barriera). Now it lands in Ravenna, where the work officially enters the museum’s permanent collection.
The project is completed by
📖 Popoli di Vetro (Viaindustriae/Xing), an artist’s book in the form of a short novel
🎵 I-A-K Interplanetary-Abyssal-Kite, a vinyl of ‘glass music and abstract electronics’ for the Xong Collection series, also available in a collector’s edition with a foulard designed by Cavaliere.
A unique opportunity to explore a vision of art that combines matter, sound and imagination.