“IDENTITÀ SOSPESE” by SILVANO RUBINO

Silvano Rubino and his personal vision on glass art tradition

Silvano Rubino is a Venetian artist who masters the unique tradition of the Murano glass art attaining extremely modern results.
Creating art in glass, in particular in Murano glass with its thousand-year-old tradition, is not easy. There are many difficulties to face: the cost of the furnaces, the master who follows your work, the accidents along the way, these all seem to conspire against you, pushing you towards other materials for expression. Yet despite everything, for many years, this has been the difficult path chosen by Silvano Rubino. If you know and spend time with him, you realise he is a true artist, one who takes the Epicurean motto “live hidden” literally. He is not a man to put himself on show, he prefers to let his glass installations speak for him. Silvano Rubino uses the inimitable qualities of Murano glass to give, what is at times an elusive, form to his thoughts.

Discover the glass art installation by Silvano Rubino at Caffè Florian

Silvano Rubino returns to Caffè Florian with a new installation entitled “Identità sospese”, curated by Stefano Stipitivich, Caffè Florian Art Director: is a refined work of art, hiding a thousand meanings that take even more strength, in a Caffè full of stories, most of which are yet to be told.
The installation in the Room of Seasons presents the mystery that often envelopes the Rooms at the Florian. Rooms visited over the centuries by many famous personalities, yet also by innumerable unknowns who have sat on those red sofas. “Identità sospese” exists there, between the present and the past.

The first collaboration between Caffè Florian and Silvano Rubino dated 2007: splendid polished vases formed a harmonious ensemble, almost a visual poem, on the back wall of the Rooms of Seasons. In addition, in the Senate Room, a white column was placed, made up of glass with orange segments, a tribute to Brancusi’s “Endless column”, which, despite its modernity, looked as though it had always been there.

The art glasses “Gli Impossibili” (The Impossible Glasses) are a pair – HIM and HER – of design pieces born from Silvano Rubino’s creativity. Made in lamp-blown Pirex glass, they are different in shape: the HER version has a waving and sinuous stem, characterized by the use of the filigree technique.
And why to call them “The Impossible Glasses”? Because the challenge is being able to drink from them!

Silvano Rubino was born in Venice, Italy, in 1952, where he currently lives and works.
His education at the Venice Accademia delle Belle arti makes him experiment with various espressive language, working on painting, photography, installation, video and video installation. He also worked on set design and theatre costumes.
From this starting point, the environmental installation becomes one of the most significant aspects of his work, in which formal synthesis becomes the element which, combined with a poetic-conceptual characteristic, determines the essence of his work.
Silvano Rubino is an artist who interprets glass with ancient wisdom whilst attaining extremely modern results.
In Rubino’s works the use of glass is frequent, together with materials such as steel and marble, sometimes the choice falls on Murano glass, others on industrial glass or borosilicate glass.

The Venice Glass Week Festival, the Celebration of Glassmaking Art in Venice

“The Venice Glass Week” is an initiative which aims to enhance the glass art in Italy and in the world, with particular regard to Venetian and Murano glass art, through activities such as exhibitions, conferences, seminars, schools, screenings, and other events having artistic glass as a leitmotif.
Caffè Florian celebrates the first edition of The Venice Glass Week 2017 with Silvano Rubino, an artist with a special bond with the historic coffeehouse.
Caffè Florian has been promoting contemporary artistic languages for many years, devoting its Halls to masters whose creative outcomes are the result of a profound exploration and comparison with the ancestral material represented by glass blowing, the alchemical fusion of sand and fire. Many different glass artists and their glass works were hosted inside the Florian: Cristiano Bianchin, Yoichi Ohira, Toots Zinsky, Richard Marquis, Massimo Nordio, Michele Burato, Maria Grazia Rosin, Mario and Antonio Dei Rossi, Fabio Fornasier, Lucio Bubacco, Davide Salvadore.