Short documentary of RUNO B‘s solo show
RIDING WITH THE WILD
2025
RIDING WITH THE WILD
curated by Luca Massimo Barbero
Ooeli complex, Hang Zhou, China
2025
Artist Runo B’s Solo exhibition RIDING WITH THE WILD to Open April 7 in OōeEli, Hangzhou, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero and housed within the architectural spaces designed by Renzo Piano. The exhibition marks the first comprehensive showcase of artist’s paintings, ceramics, and works on paper, all created between China and Italy. This cross- continental dialogue reflects the artist’s unique international perspective and dynamic, multifaceted exploration of art, presenting a surreal narrative of urban delivery riders escaping the city—but it is much more than that.
The exhibition begins with a creative migration and a transcontinental observation: In 2022, Runo B joined the residency program at the ByArtMatters Museum (OōeEli), which sparked his artistic imagination of food delivery riders during that special period. He shuttled between China and Italy, carrying with creative habits of his Venice studio, and eventually brought this long transnational journey back to China, and during the installation, Runo B continued to work here at night. Curator Barbero "move" this studio scene into the space—when audiences step into the exhibition, they are, in effect, entering an extended space-time of the artist’s studio. The entrance is a slightly crowded and chaotic setting, blending memories from residency and his own workspace. Then, through the intervention of a central mirrored panel, Barbero creates a dynamic interactive space, simultaneously incorporating the audience, artworks, the architectural design of the glass curtain wall, and the external urban landscape. This perceptive divise not only breaks the unidirectional gaze of traditional exhibition-viewing but also, through the interplay light between day and night, lead us to experience the materiality of existence in space, time, and even "Being-in-the-world"—that temporary, poetic "home." By making the creative process visible, the exhibition unveils traces of labor often concealed, whether in cooking, delivery, or artistic production—acts that typically unfold in unseen moments. Thus, this is not merely a static display but an ongoing, migratory cycle of creation.
The core series of the exhibition, Rider, draws its inspiration from his residency here. "Whenever I observed them, my mind often conjured scenes of them shuttling through empty spaces, sometimes cities, sometimes mountain fields," the artist describes. He documented riders’ lives through extensive sketches, integrating his signature research on mineral pigments, natural gemstone mediums, and experimental materials into large-scale paintings and works on paper. The exhibition also features high-temperature porcelain vessels and ceramic fragments, extending his meditation on "containment" and "bearing" . To deepen his practice, he traveled between Luoyang and Jingdezhen in China, as well as Faenza and Nove in Italy, immersing himself in creation. Like ancient ceramics that recorded daily life, artist transposes modern societal realities onto vessels through painterly language, allowing riders from different dimensions to converge— transformed into cliffhanger centaurs, worker bees, or hybrid creatures carrying vessels of civilization; Motorcycles fuse with bodies, fluorescent uniforms bleed into vegetation, and delivery boxe morph into vessel.
Ultimately, the exhibition not only materializes the artist’s personal vision but also initiates a discourse on civilization, labor, and nature—alongside all the unspoken thoughts crystallized under the midnight glow of the studio.