Ai Weiwei with Nicolo Favaretto Rubelli; Photo by Felipe Sanguinetti
At this year’s Salone del Mobile, Venetian textile house Rubelli transforms silk into a charged political medium through an immersive collaboration with artist and activist Ai Weiwei. Installed in the brand’s Via Fatebenefratelli showroom, the project dissolves the boundary between decorative craft and conceptual art, turning fabric into both environment and statement.
Visitors enter a space wrapped entirely in an elaborate silk lampas — dense, luminous, and symbol-laden. Woven in silk and gold thread, the textile translates a constellation of motifs that have long defined Ai’s visual language, converting personal history and political critique into pattern, surface, and atmosphere.