Italian winery Bottega to exhibit art to commemorate Hiroshima bombing

Italian winery and distillery Bottega is to exhibit the products of its charitable art project called ‘Spirit of Peace’ in the Rotunda of the Vienna International Centre in November 2018.

The works due to be displayed in the Vienna International Centre will feature ‘Spirit of the Peace’, an initiative designed and developed by Sandro Bottega, owner and managing director of Bottega S.p.A following his visit to the Hiroshima Peace Museum in 2015.

Having met the city mayor, Kazumi Matsui, on his visit to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the bombing, Bottega gave a donation and in return was granted the chance to exhibit an artwork in three local museums.

‘Spirit of the Peace’ was later shown at the Hiroshima MOCA, Hiroshima Museum of Art and Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum from 25 November to 10 December 2017.

The project consists of an historical collection of 50 hand blown glass bottles produced by Bottega over the past 30 years, and two artworks, designed by Sandro Bottega and produced by master glassblower Pino Signoretto, based on the island of Murano, and Alexander Bottega glassworks.

Some of the bottles in the collection stand as high as one metre tall, while the other artworks include a blown glass dove surrounded by a hundred, green drop-shaped bottles, and a white blown glass dove, also surrounded by a hundred drop-shaped bottles, but of which 50 contain Japanese flowers including oleander and camphor, representing hope and strength.

In order to further promote the project and to raise funds to donate to the foundation, Bottega has launched three products – a wine, a bottle and a gift box – which were used and poured at Hiroshima’s annual gala dinner to remember the devastation and loss caused by the bombing in 1945.