PRESS and more…

Austrian Magazine – May 2006
By Silvia Matras

Venedig auf Abwegen
VENEDIG ist fantastisch, genial, absurd, irreal und dann auch wieder ganz alltäglich. Die Mischung macht das GESAMTKUNSTWERK
SHOPPING
Gualti
Dorsoduro, Rio Terà (sic) Canal 3111, Schmuck der ganz anderen Art.
Wer nur schauen möchte, ist auch herzlich willkommen.

2006
European Cities VII
Rome Milan Venice

GUALTI
Designer
In his tiny workshop with spotless white walls-so white in fact that they look like they’ve been daubed in whipped cream- Gualtiero Salbego’s surrealistic objects seem to float in midair. One side plays host to jewelry-sculptures made of resin, fiber-optic cable, and any other material that the creative and poetic imagination of Salbego has seen fit to make use of, a mass of brooches, pendants, bracelets, and neck- laces; the other displays a single style of court pump: made to measure in satin silk, available within a month in eighty-five colors, with, on request, a clutch to match.

Travel Guide by Lonely Planet – City Guides Series
By Damien Simonis – 2006

GUALTI
Jewellery & Shoes

The searing white interior of this fashion
oddity houses two quite unrelated collections. On the one hand there’s a set of daring ladies’ satin shoes in a range of colours. On the other there are strangely luminous brooches, pins and similar accessories that look like something in between a burst of fireworks and those 1970s table lamps that resemble clumps of unkempt hair with luminous split ends. Intriguing.

Magazine – October 2005 – Issue 2

THE VENETIAN DREAM
Venice is a Dream
The artisans of the city a-dd to its beauty
Gualti with ‘sculpted’ shawls and neck scarves, and one off jewellery and head pieces.

September 2005

Jewelry / By Gualti
Venice can often appear to be a solid mass of teeming T-shirted tourists, all hell-bent on accessorizing themselves with Murano glass beads and gaudy costume masks a far cry from the glamorous crowds of the city’s heyday. In welcome contrast, Gualti’s colored-resin creations bend and swirl in ethereal patterns and gleam in the light, evoking a time when lingering laughter and the noise from glittering parties echoed through the city’s meandering canals. www.gualti.it

magazine n.30 – Agosto / Ottobre 2005

GUALTI
Inventare gioielli è un po’ come disegnare sogni: le loro forme impregnate di luce e di colori riflessi nascono da una creatività che in Gualti è naturale e sconfina nel meraviglioso, dell’inconscio. Gualti dà la massima libertà alla fantasia ma sempre fantasticando sul fatto che le sue p “sculture da portare”, preziosissime decorazioni del corpo, devono aderire a una, persona. Il giovane artista, infatti, considera ogni “pezzo” una “estensione del corpo”, e anche “una poesia per arricchire lo scrigno dei sogni”.
Inventing jewels is a little like drawing dreams: their shapes sparkling with lights and reflected colours spring from creativity which for Gualti is natural and stem from the marvels of the unconscious. Gualti lends the greatest freedom to fantasy but he always dreams on the fact that his “wearable sculptures”, very precious apparel, must adhere to a person. The young artist, in point of fact, considers each “piece” an “extension of the body” or “a poem to enrich the treasure box of dreams”.

Magazine Volume 22 – Number 1 – 2005
By John Brunton

VENICE FOR CONNOISSEURS
Discover the real city with Venice resident John Brunton’s guide to the latest trends in this timeless, yet ever-changing city.
Spectacular shopping
Great destinations for memorable gifts and exclusive fashions.
Innovative Neckwear
The eccentric designer known simply as Gualti has opened a boutique showcasing innovative jewellery that has become a firm favourite with chic Venetians. These sensuous, handmade designs are crafted from a mysterious, maleable material.
Rio Terà Canal, Dorsoduro 3111.

Travel Guide by Hachette – 2005


Gualti
Enfin ! Le Dorsoduro commence à ressembler à sa faune d’esthètes un repaire de créateurs. Gualti est l’un d’eux et conçoit ses accessoires comme des extensions du corps. Ses bijoux de cheveux sont des sculptures en mouvement, un feu follet mélange de résine et de verre, très scénographique sur un fourreau sombre (premier prix les BO à 20 €). Ses écharpes en laine, montées sur structure légèrement rigide,
enveloppent les épaules en ondoyant (à partir de 85 €). Ses escarpins en satin de soie (85 coloris, deux types de talons, 219 €) sont à assortir aux pochettes, appliquées de bijoux. Tout est fait sur place.

” E per gioiello, un fiocco di luce “

di Alessandra Artale – 20 Febbraio 2005

E per gioiello, un fiocco di luce
Le creazioni veneziane di Gualti conquistano la Florida

Gioielli, emozioni che giocano con le linee e la luce, creature diafane fluttuanti e leggere che avvolgono il corpo, bracciali, orecchini, spille, gorgiere: scenografiche sculture da indossare. Il senso di leggerezza aleggia in tutta l’opera di Gualti, giovane artista capace di creare oggetti magici con la materia impalpabile delle sue resine, il vetro, i piccoli cristalli tenuti insieme da fili di nylon trasparenti, che per mezzo di sottili alchimie si ricollegano con le piume e i tessuti attraverso le vie contorte fra l’ordine e il disordine..
Nel piccolo e curatissimo atelier di rio Terà Canal, a pochi passi da campo Santa Margherita, le sue creazioni appaiono come vere esplosioni di luce, che nascono da un cuore di vetro per poi dipanarsi in filamenti flessibili e trasparenti che vanno a formare gioielli che nulla hanno a che vedere con la bigiotteria.
La spilla è l’oggetto che Gualti, nome d’arte di Gualtiero, predilige, anche se ora si è lanciato in nuove sperimentazioni: scarpe eleganti in raso di seta realizzate su misura da scegliere in 85 tonalità di colore, da abbinare a borsette che personalizza con piume, cristalli e piccole luci, tali da ricordare le scarpette da Cenerentola. Tra poco esordirà con gli abiti, sempre su misura, intesi come sculture che cambieranno intorno al corpo, così come le sciarpe e i coprispalle che già ha realizzato: morbida lana con un’anima per modellarle intorno al corpo.
In Florida un atelier di alta moda espone le sue «creature e la stampa internazionale gli ha già regalato molto spazio. Creature, le sue, per arricchire lo scrigno dei sogni.
(Alessandra Artale)

Travel Guide Florence & Venice
by Richard Saul Wurman – 2005

GUALTI
Gualti is one of the new wave of Venetian artists and craftsmen. And what a wave! What this man does is somewhere between art and craft and represents the best of both. He works in resin, glass, and nylon to create what can only be described as wearable sculpture. His works have the lightness and delicacy of glass, yet are pliable. Gualti says he sees them as extensions of the wearer’s body. I only wish I thought my body were beautiful enough to extend into anything like these earrings and necklaces, headpieces and shoe ornaments. They are like exotic sea
anemones, or sometimes flowers or leaves, extending tendrils from a tiny central point- sometimes an eye or a “pool of water”-that frequently is made of glass crystal. The tendrils of his brooches, especially, cascade over the wearer’s shoulder like a fabulous corsage. The colors are rich, and each piece is crafted by hand with the point of a hot needle used to bore and solder. Gualti not only creates exuberant shoe ornaments, but hand dyes the handmade silk shoes to match them.

Magazine ( Czechoslovakia )
February 2005

Benátky se ještě k tomu během posledních let staly působiš- těm exkluzivních mladých umělců, pracují- cích buď s lehkostí a křehkostí moderních materiálů, jako je návrhář módních doplňků Gualti (www.gualti.it)

“Breathing More Easily Without the Throngs”

Sunday, December 19, 2004

by Mary Billard

Wher to shop
Beyond the admittedly tacky souvenir shops, there are some establishments well worth a visit.

Less traditional, and certainly eclectic, is the 12 Gualti, Rio Terà Canal, near Campo Santa Margherita, (39-041) 520-1731, www gualti.it, which sells modern space-age brooches shaped like star bursts, manufac tured in colored resin that appears brittle but is pliable and soft. The perfect silk-satin shoe, with two heel options, can be customized in 85 colors ($295), and accessorized with an explosion of magical jewelry.

Group Exhibition
GUALTI at Sculpture to Wear Gallery
808 11th St. ( at Montana Ave. )
Santa Monica, CA 90403

5th Year Anniversary Exhibition
Elements of 5
November 18 – December 31, 2004

Courtesy photos by Stella Ohanian

Trave Guide by Carnet – 2004
Anno 2 / Numero 1 / De Agostini Rizzoli Periodici – Page 268

Gualti
Rio Terà Canal, Dorsoduro 3111, tel. 041-5201731. www.gualti.it Collane, anelli, spille dai colori forti, dalle trasparenze leggere e dall’apparenza fragile. Creazioni dalle forme allungate, dalle sfumature eccentriche che sembrano plasmate dal vetro. Invece sono modelli unici realizzati a mano con sorprendenti tecniche in semplice materiale plastico. Piccoli gioielli polimeri da indossare con carattere dall’effetto irresistibile

Japanise Book – Fall 2004

美しい街並み、美術、世界遺産、 食を味わいつくす

フィレンツェ・ヴェネツィア・ミラノ ローマ

Japanise Magazine – Fall 2004

Numéro 2 – 18 Mars 2004

The best spots in the most romantic city of the world, selected by our correspondant
Gaby Lewin

Gualti
Fit for the red carpet, Gualti creates exceptional, organically inspired jewelry and accessories. Seemingly fragile, the artist creates sculptural like earrings, headpieces, pins and other embellishments for the female form in a flexible resin that is soft to the touch. If you are looking for that piece to set you apart from the crowd – this is the place to visit! He also has a silk shoe line that can be dyed in an impressive variety of colors.

2004
Villes d’Europe VII
Rome Florence Milan Venice

GUALTI
Dans un minuscule atelier aux murs immaculés, d’un blanc si blanc qu’on les dirait de chantilly, les objets de ce créateur semblent flotter, surréalistes. D’un côté, les bijoux sculptures en résine, fibre optique ou tout autre matériau qui nourrissent l’imaginaire poétique et la créativité de Gualtiero Salbego, avec autant de broches, pendentifs, bracelets et colliers, et de l’autre, un seul modèle d’escarpin, fait sur mesure en satin de soie, disponible dans 85 couleurs sous trente jours, assorti, sur demande, à son petit sac à main.

11 Februar 2004

City trendquartier
Dorsoduro, der “harte Rücken” von Venedig, ist Künstlerviertel und beliebtes Ausgeh quartier zugleich – der ideale Ort, um sich so richtig schön zu verirren.
Text: Barbara Klingbacher – Fotos: Roberto Ceccarelli
Shoppen
Gualti
Dorsoduro 3111, Rio Terà Canal, www.gualti.it, Mo-Sa 10-13/15-19.30 Uhr
Bei Gualti findet man einzigartige Schmuckstücke. Die filigranen Werke aus Fiberglas und Glasperlen gibts als Ohrringe, Haarschmuck oder Broschen. Sehr hübsch sind auch die schlichten Pumps, die man in 85 Farbtönen bestellen kann (zirka 330 Franken).

Botteghe e Dintorni by Michela Scibilia – 2004

Gualti
I piccoli briosi accessori di Gualtiero sono sempre più apprezzati dalle signore eleganti della città che li sfoggiano anche in occasioni un po’ speciali: orecchini, spille (da 60 €), collier, bracciali, hat piece, che sembrano di vetro! Forme organiche in resine sintetiche, morbide al tatto, dall’apparenza fragile, nelle quali rimangono imprigionate sfere di vetro. Inoltre produce un modello di scarpa (219 €) con tacco da 8,5 – o il meno temerario da 5 cm – e pochette abbinata che può realizzare in 85 tonalità di raso di seta.

Travel Guide by Paul Blanchard – 2004

Gualti Dorsoduro 3111, Rio Terrà Canal. The delicate, flower-inspired accessories of Gualtiero Salbego have delicately arching pistils and scattered petals of beads, and the aesthetic is a delicate extravagance that would put any debutante in raptures. You can also have sexy slingback shoes colour-matched-presumably to the flowers and brightly coloured sprays.

01/2 Gennaio Febbraio 2004

Da Piazzale Roma al Campo prediletto da giovani, artisti, studenti e curiosi, attratti da un proliferare di locali golosi e di tendenza. Un itinerario di tesori riscoperti, antiche botteghe e nuove creatività.
Venezia: Santa Margherita
L’Atelier Gualti (due foto a destra in basso) crea scarpe in raso e seta in più di cento colori e gioielli scultura realizzati in resine sintetiche e vetro.
Di Laura Novello – Foto di Gianni Sala

Travel Guide by Fodor’s – 2003

Gualti (Rio Terà Canal, near Campo Santa Margherita, 3111 Dorsoduro, 041/5201731, WEB www.gualti.com) makes creative jewelry in colored resin that looks as fragile as glass but is as strong and soft as rubber. Earrings take the shape of mysterious sea creatures-sea anemones or jellyfish-broaches look like fall leaves, and necklaces are reminiscent of Queen Elizabeth’s ruffled collars. Silk shoes can be custom “garnished” with jewelry.

Orient Express Travel Series
Book – October 2003
By Sandra Harris

The Campo Santa Margherita is also the home of another young designer, Gualti, who has been experimenting with soft resin decoration for shoes, scarves and handbags. His designs, inspired by the lagoon, are unique, often in coral or aqua shades. They can look quite spiky, like sea urchins or anemones, but are soft, and they bend, so even when embellishing the highest heels or the sleekest handbag they are delightfully practical.

” Glasses and other ornaments that hinge on Venetian flair “

by Kate Singleton
Tuesday, July 29, 2003 – Page 7

Here the digital edition

Glasses and other ornaments that hinge on Venetian flair

By Kate Singleton, International Herald Tribune
July 29, 2003

Excerpt from the article :

Gualti, a designer specializing in jewelry and body ornaments, describe what they produce as extensions of the body, offshoots of the wearer’s personality. Gualti’s work embodies all the lightness and delicacy of Venetian glass, yet is soft and pliable to the touch.
Editors’ Picks
“I’ve found that I can get a variety of different synthetic resins to capture and reflect light, and to move gently like tendrils in the breeze,” Gaulti said. “I also use glass beads in my compositions, and tiny fragments of flexible laminates that accentuate the impression of movement.”
Self-taught, Gualti has been experimenting with the expressive potential of all sorts of materials since he was a child. This aptitude placed him at odds with his farming family in the hinterland of Padua. Rather than have him go to art school, they had him apprenticed at the age of 14 to a ceramicist.
“In my free time, when I wasn’t drawing I was setting off on expeditions to find beautiful things,” Gualti said. “Roots were a particular passion. I think that’s where the undulating filigree of my designs comes from. A small band of much younger children used to trot along with me and we would display our discoveries on a white sheet. My father and grandfather thought there was something wrong with me. They wanted a son with manly pursuits.”
By the time he was out of his teens, Gualti knew he had to move away. He applied for a job doing fresco work in Mestre, on the mainland. During a trial period using what was for him a new medium, his inventiveness and eye for detail so impressed the owner that she persuaded him to show her the sculptures he had been making at home.
Gualti’s workshop and store (Dorsoduro 3111, Rio Terà Canal; tel 041 5201731; www.gualti.it) are in an area that has maintained some of the color and bustle of the artisan district it once was. The gleaming white walls of the showroom shimmer quietly with the almost liquid light reflected from the gently oscillating resin filaments that are a feature of his work.
Each piece is meticulously crafted by hand, with the hot point of a needle used to bore and solder. Headpiece, armband, earrings, ring, soon ties as well: These are small sculptures that embrace motion and eschew symmetry. Color and form are reminiscent of the glorious blown-glass chandeliers traditionally made on the Venetian island of Murano. Yet the hand that reaches out to touch pale petals and leaves of such apparent fragility is shocked and then enchanted to discover a light, submissive medium that will not shatter or deform.
Though Gualti created some astounding headpieces for clients confident of making an impact at the recently inaugurated Venice Biennale, he will have nothing to do with the fashion houses keen to co-opt him into producing accessories for their designer collections. “No way! I would feel oppressed, just as I did in my teens.”
What does interest him is extending his experience to video and perhaps thereafter to the theater: the most natural development in a city that saw the birth of opera and whose every corner is a stage set.

Kate Singleton is a writer based in Italy.

30 Giugno 2003

[NEGOZI]
di Anna Santini
TOKIO, NUOVA DELHI, VENEZIA E FIRENZE.
L’AGENDA DELLO SHOPPING ESTIVO HA NUOVI INDIRIZZI PER VIAGGIATORI CURIOSI E INFATICABILI

La scarpa di cristallo
VETRO SOFFIATO, CHE DA VITA A FIORI E DECORAZIONI ISPIRATE ALLE FORME ORGANICHE. POSSONO ESSERE BIJOUX, SPILLE, ELEMENTI DA AGGIUNGERE A UN VESTITO. ANCHE ALLE SCARPE, CHE GUALTI, ARTIGIANO VENEZIANO, AL 3111 DI DORSODURO, REALIZZA SU MISURA IN 85 TONALITÀ DI RASO E SETA. PER OGNI EVENTO.

Travel Guide by Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls
Cadogan Guides – 2003

Jewellery
Gualti
Dorsoduro 3111, Rio Terrà Canal, t 041 520 1731, w www.gualti.it; vaporetto Ca’ Rezzonico.
The simple white interior of this small shop perfectly sets off Gualti’s designs. Delicate, ethereal and, above all, highly original brooches, earrings and bracelets look extraordinarily fragile but are in fact made from tough mixed synthetic resin and tiny crystal beads. Also elegant satin shoes.

Hotels and Resorts Magazine –
Volume 11 – Issue 1 – Spring 2003

Hot Stops
against the TIDE
Off-season Venice lures a heady crowd
BY VALERIE WATERHOUSE

Sea snakes, orchids, and raindrops are some of the inspirations for one-of-a-kind jewellery at GUALTI (Rio Terà Canal, 3111 Dorsoduro; 041-520-1731), fashioned by owner Gualtiero Salbego from transparent resin and glass (€100- €250). Fairy-tale pieces include anemone inspired necklaces made from long, transparent filaments, each capped with a tiny glass bead (€100-€250). Salbego also creates made-to-measure cigarette-heel pumps and slingbacks from satin silk (€199-€400). Aristocratic glass designer Marie Brandolini and San Francisco grand dame Dodie Rosekrans are among Gualti’s well-known clients.

La Repubblica Delle Donne

N.339 – 22 Febbraio 2003

SCARPE ALCHEMICHE
Creazioni seducenti. Sono le scarpe gioiello-scultura di Guati, giovane artista che nel proprio atelier veneziano sperimenta nuove alchimie fra materiali. Soprattutto miscele di resine sintetiche che con forme ispirate agli abissi marini, vengono poi montate su scarpe di raso.
Info: tel. 041.520.1731. V.C.

Magazine
Fashion Trends Materials Interviews

2003

GIOIELLI-SCULTURA CHE STUZZICANO I SENSI
La morbidezza della seca, il profumo delle misture di resine sintetiche, le stimolazioni visive di nuovi percorsi creativi. E’ un’esperienza sensoriale quella che si vive nell’accostarsi alle creazioni di Gualtiero Salbego, in arte Gualti, un giovane artista che nel proprio atelier veneziano produce, sperimentando sulla materia, accessori (scarpe e borse in raso di seta disponibili su ordinazione tra 85 tonalità) e monili (vetro e resine).

JEWEL-SCULPTURES TANTALIZING THE SENSES
The suppleness of silk, the fragrance of concoctions of synthetic resins, visual stimulations for new creative outlets. A sensorial experience that is felt in approaching the creations of Gualtiero Salbego, in art Gualti, a young artist who in his Venice workshop produces and experiments with materials and accessories (shoes and handbags in satin available by special order in 85 different tones), and necklaces (glass and resin).
www.gualti.it

Magazine 2003
Editorial – ARS • 108

Gualti special sculpture-creations enhance footwear, bags and clothes
Shoe decorations and jewels to wear
The originality of the various types of clasps, jewels and ethnic decorations can enhance clothes, shoes, bags, scarves and stoles but also hairstyles or a special ensemble for the evening or a wedding
■«Is it the jewel that enhances the body or the body that allows itself to be totally caught and decorated by these decorations?». This is the question put by Annamaria Orsini Cammarata, art historian, in “Ornamenta”, a text dedicated to the creations of Gualtiero Salbego, professionally known as ‘Gualti’, that already indicates the significance of these creations and acts as a good starting point in understanding the young Venetian creator of such special sculptures and gems that can enhance or transform the look of those who wear them. Originally from the Padova province, 30-year old Gualti is self-taught, an “experimenter and inventor” of body decoration, whose creativity is the driving power of his existence, resulting in the showing of his creations in various art exhibitions in cities from Vicenza to Venice, where he has a workshop in Rio Terà, at Dorsoduro. From childhood he was always interested in anything that is born or found below the surface, roots and fossils in particular, later he worked on the profiles of these objects which fascinated him so much, so as to create jewels and accessories in the shape of flowers, leaves, cascades of feathers, often with a heart or, even better an eye, in the centre, an “orb of water” according to Annamaria Orsini, that seems to study the present. In fact, the materials Gualti works with such as resins, glass, small crystals, contribute to the magic of his creations with their transparency, luminousity, impalpable and watery consistency, as does the choice of colours from white to all the various shades of blue, green and coral. Thanks to these characteristics his wide variety of clasps, jewels, amulets and ethnic decorations characterize or even give new identity to dresses, court shoes, bags, scarves and stoles or enhance a hairstyle, a special ensemble for evenings or weddings, filling them with light and colour, making them unique and unmistakable.

Magazine anno VII. n°27 dicembre 2002
Editorial Page 69

Cult Bijoux
GUALTI

A Venezia gioie e ornamenti del colore dell’iride luccicano e brillano in una bottega candida come zucchero filato, in cui si respira aria di poesia e creatività Gualtiero Salbego trasforma emozioni, sogni e fantasie in spille, pendenti, gorgiere di fili sottilissimi, stole, corsetti, borse e scarpe da Cenerentola.
I suoi gioielli in resina, interamente eseguiti a mano, rivelano morbidezza, fluidità e piacevole aderenza alla pelle. Volute, riccioli o filamenti sottili, conferiscono volume alle creazioni di Gualti, il cui cuore è spesso costituito da un’ “iride” cangiante, ora opalescente, ora opaca.
Gli accostamenti cromatici sono insoliti e rari. L’artista, attentissimo ai dettagli, crea sfumature e gradazioni di colore a pennello e spesso utilizza la luminescenza della foglia d’argento per donare ai suoi ornamenti riflessi lunari.

In Venice, iris-coloured jewels and ornaments sparkle and shine in a workshop snow-white like spun sugar, where you breathe an air of poetry and creativity.
Gualtiero Salbego transforms emotions, dreams, and fantasies into brooches,
pendants, and ruffs of the finest threads, stoles, corsets, bags and Cinderella’s shoes.
His jewels in resin, entirely handmade, display softness, fluidity and a pleasing bond with the skin. Spirals, curls and fine filaments lend volume to Gualti’s creations, whereby the heart is often created from an iridescent, opalescent and opaque “iris”.
The chromatic combinations are unusual and rare. The artist, very attentive towards detail, creates shading and colour shades with a paintbrush and often uses the luminescence of silver leaf to regale his ornaments with lunar reflections.

Some creations by GUALTI custom made
for the German actress Annett Renneberg ( alias signorina Elettra )
in certain scenes of the television series.
Donna Leon is the American author of the Commissario Guido Brunetti crime novels series
that was adapted as the German television series Commissario Brunetti.

“In sachen signora Brunetti” – 10 October 2002
Go to minute 43:00 of the video
“Pistils” organza scarf with filaments in nylon and glass bead +
“Sprout” ring in nylon monofilament and glass beads.

Frames from the video

“Nobiltà” – 17 October 2002 –
Go to minute 57:05 of the video
“Ramage” white, black and red brooch 18 x 8 cm in synthetic resin paynted.
Perfectly matched with her skirt print.

Frames from the video

French Travel Book by Frédéric Vitoux – 2002

BIJOUX
Gualti
Rio Terà Canal, 3111
041 520 17 31
Dans sa boutique immaculée, ce jeune homme venu de Padoue propose des bijoux singuliers faits d’un mélange de verre et de résine, qui semblent vibrer dans l’air.

” VENICE, VIDI, VICI “

Falling in Love With This Romantic City Isn’t Easy

by Chris Lehmann – April 28, 2002

( English text ) Here the digital edition

Excerpt from the article :

Of course, a less unwitting evocation of Venice’s character comes from those who have swooned headlong into Venice’s gauzy, improbable flight from the fusty realities that shape the lives of other cities. Consider, for instance, the local merchant Gualti, the proprietor of a small but flamboyant jewelry boutique off the Campo Santa Margherita.
Gualti’s shop boasts a host of odd plastic-looking pendants, earrings and rings in various shades of purple. Purple, too, is the prose in the explanatory manifesto Gualti has mounted alongside his creations. It explains that the objects are indeed plastic — or, as Gualti puts it, “little polymeric jewels springing from the skilled hands of our amphitryon.”
And he’s just warming up. The jewels are evidently wraparound affairs that can shape-shift in any direction, to virtually any size: “Rings with anthropormorphic suggestiveness, bangles which surround the arm in an attempt to wrap the whole body, necklaces that capture the subject like spider webs and transform [it] into a complementary object. . . . Bodies, birds, collars, jewels — ornaments to dress a way of life that finds its natural status in Venice because in Venice one is masked all the time.”
As our faux Valley dude back in the bar might have said, “Whatever.” Yet, by the time we stumbled onto Gualti’s manifesto, we had to concede he had a point. For a city suspended on poles plunged into the floor of a lagoon, the mundane forces of place and time can seem as frivolous, shape-shifting and self-consciously silly as Gualti’s sculpture-jewelry. In the long sunset of its imperial decline, Venice had come to stake most of its identity on illusion. Somehow this reflection, like McCarthy’s image of the city as a folding picture-postcard, was oddly fortifying.

As was another: Among other things, the fond civic dreams of Venice, which have inspired enthusiasts from Titian and Tintoretto, Casanova and Henry James, Ruskin and Byron, on down through Gualti, can be an allegory of romantic love, another supranatural wonder constructed in defiance of the grim determinisms of environment and history, and crafted from presumptions ultimately no more outlandish than those behind Gualti’s wares.
It was a charming, consoling thought — and if nothing else, our sojourn in Venice taught us what a deceptively simple thing it is to be charmed. What more can you ask of a honeymoon?
Chris Lehmann is deputy editor of The Washington Post Book World.
On his honeymoon in Venice, the author discovered the city’s central truth: There is no central truth. It may take a while, but the charms of Venice will finally reveal themselves.

Travel – March 2002

Gondola with the wind
Venice is a breeze if you stick with the locals. Rachel Spence joins them for Red Sea spaghetti away from it all
Venice is a drama queen who keeps demanding attention
The backstage scene centres on the Dorsoduro district to the east of the Accademia gallery, the Notting Hill of Venice. The streets are peppered with one-off shops owned by young, talented designers:
Gualti, showcase for the spiky but bendy creations of Paduan Gualtiero Salbego.

Italian Magazine – 12 Settembre 2001
By Ida Fenili

In giro per Venezia
C’è anche un’altra Venezia meno scontata, ma ugualmente preziosa e sottilmente più snob, fatta di piccole botteghe dove è possibile trovare cose davvero uniche e irripetibili, perché nate dalla straordinaria creatività degli artigiani del luogo, e dove esistono “angoli” e atmosfere che sanno rendere magico il soggiorno in questa città.
Di fragile bellezza, in fili di resina e vetro, gli “ornamenti” di Gualti, Dorsoduro 3111 (tel. 041/5201731): sono irreali spille simili a fiori marini e collane-gorgiera, impalpabili e vibranti, che rendono unico il più anonimo tubino nero.

magazine n.5 – Maggio 2001

Gualtiero Salbego, invece, crea gioielli con un materiale polimerico indistruttibile e malleabile che, opportunamente lavorato, assume le sembianze e i colori del cristallo più puro. Spille, anelli, orecchini, collane insolite che l’artista vende nella sua bottega Gualti, vicino al ponte dei Pugni.

Travel Guide
Guida insolita ai misteri, ai segreti, alle leggende e alle curiosità di Venezia
By Brusegan Marcello, Scarsella Alessandro, Vittoria Maurizio
Newton Compton Editori – 2000

Gualti, Dorsoduro 2834/A, tel. 041.5201721, dove morbide fusioni plastiche dall’ingannevole aspetto vitreo vengono lavorate in modo tale da ricavarne dei gioielli o degli accessori d’abbigliamento magnifici a vedersi.

Panorama Magazine by Mondadori
Anno 3 – N.10 – Ottobre 2000

Gualti è un’insolita gioielleria, le cui creazioni, collane e orecchini, traggono in inganno molti turisti, convinti che quei flessuosi gioielli siano di vetro di Murano, mentre sono realizzati con una plastica plasmabile di formula misteriosa.

AIR DOLOMITI IN – FLIGHT MAGAZINE
Autunno 2000 – Numero 35
Cover photo,
photo page 1,
editorial page 56 and 57 by Irene Pancrazi

GIOIELLI IN MASCHERA
Rio terà-canal: un indirizzo che più veneziano non si può (3111 di Dorsoduro per chi ama più l’esattezza che la poesia). A un passante distratto potrebbe sembrare il solito negozietto di vetri di Murano. Ma a Venezia ciò che appare non è. E per chi, curioso, vuole capire meglio di che cosa si tratti non resta che entrare in questa piccola wunderkammer, questa stanza delle meraviglie. Gualti – artefice, artista, artigiano – spiega quale sia la vera sostanza dei suoi gioielli: un materiale plastico, morbido, avvolgente, opalescente da cui nascono piccoli gioielli polimeri, espressioni plastiche che diventano espressioni artistiche, vere e proprie sculture da indossare. Anelli dalle suggestioni antropomorfe, bracciali che circondano l’avambraccio cercando di avvolgere tutto il corpo, collane come ragnatele che catturano tutta la persona trasformandola in oggetto di complemento assieme alle pietre, alle piume, ai tessuti imprigionati nella trama sottile dell’ordito. Chi cattura e chi è catturato? Difficile da spiegare. In parole povere si potrebbe dire che il gioiello diviene accessorio di moda, estroso, ironico, iperbolico. Eppure si tratta di oggetti leggeri, indossabilissimi pur nella loro intrigante capacità di avvolgere tutto il corpo e inglobarlo nella propria interiorità. Corpetti, reggiseni, indumenti gioiello per rivestire un modo di essere che a Venezia trova il suo status naturale: già, perché a Venezia si è sempre in maschera….. Così questi oggetti di plastica assumono la brillantezza del vetro, i colori dell’iride, la durezza del metallo. E indossati per una festa o per tutti i giorni, non cesseranno mai di stupire.

MASKED JEWELS
Rio terà-canal: you couldn’t ask for a more Venetian address (3111 Dorsoduro for prosaic precision). To the casual passer-by, it might seem to be just another shop selling Murano glass. But Venice is famed for seeming and not being. And for the more curious among us, there’s no other option than to enter this tiny “wunderkammer”, this room of marvels. Gualti – the owner, artist and craftsman – explains the true substance of his jewels: a plastic, soft, encircling and opalescent material used to make small “polymer” jewels, plastic forms becoming expressions of art, full-scale “dress” sculpture. Rings with anthropomorphic evocations, bracelets which surround the forearm while seemingly attempting to embrace the whole body, necklaces like cobwebs which capture the wearer, turned into an accessory just like hard stone jewels, boas, and fabrics imprisoned in the subtle weave. Who captures and who is captured? Difficult to explain. In mere words, one could say that the jewel becomes a fashion accessory, extrovert, ironic, hyperbolic. Yet these are flimsy objects and wonderful to wear despite their intriguing capacity of winding around the entire body, incorporating the wearer in their inward essence. Bustiers, bras, jewel-clothes, worn in as a way of life that finds its natural status in Venice: of course… Venice is always masked. These plastic articles take on the shine of glass, the colours of the iris, the hardness of metal. Worn everyday or only for parties, they never cease to surprise.

るるぶ ( RURUBU ) 2000 Italy
ローマ フィレンツェ ミラノ ヴェネツィア

Japan Travel Guide by JTB – 2000/2001

Gualti
存在感のあるアクセサリー ゴムとプラスチックを素材に、 自由なフォルムが目を引くアク セサリー。
セラミック工房で働 いていたグアルティさんによる 手作りの品々だ。
一点でも映え る斬新なデザインは、舞台衣裳 にも使われるというのも納得。

magazine 1999
word of mouth

SUMMER IN VENICE
What to buy
Searching for that perfect souvenir?
Forgo the rows of tacky glassware stalls for the fanciful merchandise at Gualti :
intricate, brightly colored acces sories and or naments, all of which are made out of plastic.
You’ll feel as glamorously Gothic as Venice itself
(Fondamenta Gherardini 2834/A, in Dorsoduro; 39.041-520-1731).

25 aprile 1998 – Treviso
“LABIRINTO”
Performance degli estAsia con Romina Salvadori
ed il gioiello “Spire” di GUALTI
realizzato appositamente per l’happening.

GUALTI at
Vicenza Arte – pad.G Stand 1624
18 – 26 February 1995
with the galley CHEIROS with 4 unique jewels
Group Exhibition

GUALTI
Giovane creativo, dell’area padovana, non lavora metalli preziosi ma duttile silicone sfruttandone la trasparenza o la svariata gamma cromatica. Realizza forme organiche spesso vere e proprie ragnatele nelle quali imprigiona pezzi di vetro o di metallo. Anche i suoi gioielli, come per bonesini, sono pezzi eccentrici e vistosi, ma più che pezzi di scena per ipotetiche rappresentazioni teatrali o teatralità dell’indossare come potevano essere quelli di Bonesini, i pezzi di Gualti sono più oggetti pensati per il giovane metropolitano legato all’underground al dark all’ambiente delle discoteche. Leggerezza e indossabilità nonostante gli avvolgenti volumi ne determinano il successo tra i giovani che li indossano con disinvoltura come protensioni e protesi del proprio corpo verso il mondo circostante, parte integrante dell’abbigliamento fino a divenire vero e proprio abbigliamento come i corpetti di silicone.