On 6 February 2025, the thirteenth edition of Art City kicked off in Bologna. This is an event of international scope that, once a year, puts the Emilia capital at the centre of the contemporary art map, with many events spread throughout the city, including exhibitions, meetings, presentations and performances.
This edition saw the presence of Renner Italia as technical sponsor of a group exhibition – MONDOpatia – curated by Giovanni Busacca and Valerio Dehò.
During the exhibition there was also time to see Rio Verde‘s new Evolution line of paints at work, used by street artist Noeyes during a live painting session.
MONDOpathy: art and irony as therapy for the world
Right: Renner Italia paint can in the foreground and, in the background, “Socialvoyeur”, by Maurizio Mantovi, digital print on aluminium and manual intervention, 2025.
The world is in a bad way. The list of symptoms is long, including climate crisis, wars, hypertourism, increasingly blurred boundaries between the real and the artificial.
In the contemporary art scene, irony is a fundamental tool for interpreting reality and building a dialogue between the individual and society. The MONDOpatia project – organised by Stazione Arte Contemporary at Teatri di Vita Studio – embodies this vision, presenting works that deal with the complexity of existence with lightness and depth at the same time.
As the curators, Giovanni Busacca and Valerio Dehò, emphasise, the participating artists mix different techniques and media to render pop images of everyday madness, rich in meaning and utopias.
There is Oscar Baccilieri who transforms sandpaper discs into neo-pop mosaics, while Vittorio Dario Brocadello plays with calembour and the concept of souvenirs, reinterpreting symbols and everyday objects. Mauro Luccarini, with his works inspired by musical imagery, constructs a visual soundtrack of contemporary experience, while Maurizio Mantovi with Pax in Terrae creates a dialogue between art history, peace and conflict.
Right: ‘Descartes’ Dream’, by Ernesto Jannini, hardware and acrylic on panel, 2018.
Ernesto Jannini explores the relationship between reality and virtuality, anticipating trends related to the reuse and reinterpretation of reality. Francesco Garbelli, on the other hand, reworks the language of road signs to address crucial social issues, from ecology to the extinction of the human race. Emiliano Salvetti projects the Freudian concept of the Super-Ego through the figure of Superman, while Michele Rigoni proposes an intimate journey into the father-son relationship with a work with a strong autobiographical component.
Adriano Tetti reflects on man-woman relationships through the use of ceramics that rework everyday objects, while Stefano Peruzy is inspired by Neapolitan culture with a work that recalls Totò and the tradition of Italian comedy.
For CUT, the game of Monopoly is a kind of metaphor for life: “He makes his way between a probability and an unexpected chance in search of a path and sometimes chooses instead of us,” says the artist-craftsman, an old acquaintance of Renner Italia.
Renner is also the protagonist of the project A new dawn by photographer Erik Messori, a reportage on migratory flows through the story of the large mural created by Laika with our paints on the Renner Italia plant in Minerbio.
Noeyes: geometries, colours and… Evolution paints
Lastly, Giulia Salamone, aka Noeyes, who with her colourful geometric and abstract compositions – realised on canvas as well as on walls or on shutters along the streets, effectively making cities a living, open-air museum – reminds us of the complexity of the world.
At MONDOpatia, the street artist – in addition to exhibiting her canvas Mezzo mare è lacrima (Half the Sea is a Tear ) – was also the protagonist of a live painting performance that saw her at work with paints from Rio Verde’s Evolution line on a wooden support.
For the occasion, we met her and asked her a few questions.
Interview with Noeyes
Had you ever worked with Evolution paints?
No, not so far. In terms of spreading, they are very good. As a substrate, I used untreated wood and, as I had little time, I simply used a base coat of white as a primer to block the pores of the surface.
With Evolution, I only needed a couple of coats. In this case I had a limited range of colours available. My work is based on chromatology, and from the ready-made colours I was quickly able to pull out more. Of course, one could do a lot of them.
I work mainly on walls, with brushes. And I am curious to try them there too.
How do you get on with water-based paints?
I have used many brands of water-based paint, and in this case I was pleasantly impressed: Evolution is odourless, has a very good yield and, as I said, spreads very well. And then I noticed a detail that might seem small, but isn’t: if you mix different colours together to get another one, if you leave the paint there to rest, then you just have to stir it a little to get the exact same tone. With other brands this often does not happen.
Asking people who work with colours on a daily basis what their favourite is is a meaningless question, we know. But we ask you anyway: do you have a favourite colour?
I use orange a lot in my work, although I have to tell myself every time not to use it because it covers very little. In general, I really like warm colours, for example burgundy. Cold tones include bluish and greens. In fact, as I am creating this work, I got excited about this green.
How did you create it?
I used Evolution Laurel together with a bit of white(Evolution Cotton).
As I said, you just have to experiment a bit with proportions and mixes to find really interesting shades.
To visit the exhibition
In the centre, ‘Half the Sea is Tear’, by Noeyes, acrylic on canvas, 2024.
On either side, photographs by Erik Messori from the project ‘A New Dawn’, 2024.
For those who would like to visit MONDOpatia before it closes, the exhibition is free and can be visited until 16 February, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at Teatri di Vita Studio, Via del Pratello 90/A, Bologna.
