RunoB    Works,        

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FLY ME HOME  series
Digital Photograph, dimensions variable
2022

FLY ME HOME 2022
Qiansheng Chinese Restaurant
Venice-Mestre, Italy


Near Venice Mestre railway station, inside a Chinese restaurant, nineteen works including paintings, installations, carpets, and works on paper by RUNO B have been installed, forming a special project. The project will open at Qiansheng Restaurant which is not a typical “Chinese restaurant” as understood in Italy, because almost no customers come here merely to eat Spring rolls or Cantonese fried rice. It lacks local or Italian clientele; in this sense, it is a marginal restaurant and a sensory haven belonging exclusively to Chinese society. The project title, Fly Me Home, derives from the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” and from the Chinese pronunciation of “fennel” (which sounds the same as “returning home”). These two symbols are widely used throughout the works, serving as a new extension of RUNO B’s food-related and Fool series, and as a dialogue with this particular space. Luca Massimo Barbero cooperated in the installation, who identified the originality of a Temporary Action Zone in the place and in the project.
The Fool series has been Runo B’s principal subject in recent years. He depicts figures such as the person who stole the lectern from the U.S. Capitol, the last unvaccinated individual, the afflicted, insomniacs, a wandering Pinocchio, and others. These figures are often cultural and social outsiders, exiles of this era, continuously seeking their own spiritual civilization and gathering places through the process of marginalization. The group of works installed in the Chinese restaurant uses the Fool as a backdrop to project Runo B himself, representing those Chinese people who are unable to return home. They gather at Qiansheng, immersed in the pungent, choking fumes of spicy cooking. As a result, the project resembles his presence within a space that is itself a kind of in-between condition.


As a core seasoning in Chinese cuisine, fennel shares its pronunciation in Chinese with the word “returning home.” People living abroad are inevitably influenced by local culture in many ways, with ingredients and cooking being the most direct. For example, within a single painting one might see pizza and Chinese flatbread, fennel and a ham slicer, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and chicken soup garnished with scallions and goji berries. Runo B also used eight rice packaging bags that he consumed over two years during the pandemic, collecting and sewing them into a single large piece of fabric; on this installation he placed several manuscripts that reflect key elements of his practice. He also used the doormat placed at his doorway as a material, painting directly on it.

© RUNO B 

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