The Window  Washer

Matete Martini
Signoretto Lampadari Srl

Curation by Costanza Longanesi Cattani
Spazio Spaziale

The Window Washer represents the second chapter of the Beaten Egg series,
a sequel to the artist’s eponymous film directed and produced in 2022, of which the exhibition serves as the tangible and sculptural counterpart.

Matete Martini, during Glass Week, unveils a new series of works titled Beaten Egg, created in Murano at the ancient furnaces of Signoretto Lampadari Srl.

Beaten Egg introduces a new symbolism into Matete’s cosmology, rich in autobiographical references: the memory of the beaten egg preparation

by the artist’s paternal grandmother. While in the film, the egg is captured in the hypnotic and repetitive act of being beaten, in The Window Washer, it becomes an immobile sphere that crystallizes the existential metaphor of contemporary urban human condition. The egg, or the sphere, represents the common denominator of all of The Window Washer’s production and is the poetic translation of human alienation in society.

In the series of sculptures, the sphere - the human - is paired with other glass scenic elements, such as a theater armchair, a mirror, a movie screen, and a box. Beaten Egg is an invitation to self-analysis, an introspective act that culminates in self-discovery and self-acceptance. Often, this awareness has a bitter and ironic taste. In this process, the box represents the moment of interrogation, the mirror compels comparison, and the armchair can refer to both the psychoanalysis couch and the cinema seat.


These pairs - man screen, man mirror, man box, man chair - invite reflection on the role of image in the stage of multimedia society life. Through his work, Matete Martini emerges as a theatrical director of a world where interchangeable media converge: from filmmaking to canvas painting, from glass production to digital content production, from sculpture to interior decor, from photography to styling. The eclectic artist, Matete, like the viscous glass material, changes, ranging from one medium to another, becoming a curator

of the world and filtering the image through an aesthetic approach.
An important influence on the imagery of Beaten Egg is the production

of the famous German choreographer and dancer Pina Bausch, from whom the exhibition title, The Window Washer, pays tribute to her performance Der Fensterputzer, 1997. While on one hand, Bausch celebrates and simultaneously ridicules the frenzy of the metropolis, the repetitiveness of daily routine, and the complexity of our existence; on the other hand, Matete tells the urban history’s poetry in glass that the great Master represents in dance.


Furthermore, Matete uses the bucket as a scenic paradigm and an installational object. The Window Washer gains another meaning and becomes an expedient to ironically suggest the act of cleaning the glass works themselves, an autobiographical reference to the preparation for the Venice Glass Week. The Window Washer suggests a form of interaction crucial for activating the installation’s meaning. In this way, the artist, but also a hypothetical owner, when cleaning the artwork, become performers and enactors of an artistic gesture. Matete also explores the relationship between reality and image, pictorially representing the bucket, which shifts from an object to a subject of representation.

︎︎︎THE WINDOW WASHER, curated by Costanza Longanesi Cattani, is an official participant in Venice Glass Week 2023. The Window Washer will be held from September 9th to September 30th, 2023, from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM, at the interdisciplinary art space SPAZIO SPAZIALE, located at White Rabbit Cannery, Fondamenta de la Sensa, Cannaregio 3219, Venice. The exhibition will open on September 15th, from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM.