Lisbeth Thalberg
The Giano Art Festival’s inaugural edition has successfully brought the art of live painting to one of Rome’s most iconic historical settings.
At the Arch of Janus, the fresh creative energy of 15 young artists from various Roman art academies produced effervescent results full of character, talent, and originality as they recreated, live, one of the most important symbolic monuments of the capital.
From 9:30 AM to 2:30 PM, without pause, these young artists created works that spanned figurative, abstract, and semantic languages, traversing neorealism, imagination, comics, portraiture, disjointed and futuristic dream visions. Their brushes danced across the square in front of Via dei Cerchi, belonging to artists such as Iacopo Antonucci, Andrea Calcagno, Eleonora Favale, Maria Luisa Figueiredo, Gaye Gunay, Clarisse Hermont, Andrea Lancianese, Carolina Levorin, Ana Mardesic, Arianna Pompeo, Arianna Pontil Ceste, Niccolò Tolaini, Michelangelo Torretti, Daria Tychina, and Alina Zialionaya.
These inspired pieces have managed to bring contemporary forms to ancient history, revealing sensitive and non-didactic visions. The event also had an international flavor, featuring students not only from Italy but also from Portugal, Brazil, Turkey, Russia, Belarus, and Croatia.
This initiative, a winning project of a public notice promoted by Roma Capitale in collaboration with Zètema Progetto Cultura and under the patronage of Municipio I Roma Centro, was conceived and curated by Marco Panella. It was produced by the cultural factory Artix with the artistic direction of Danilo de’ Cocci.
“It was an absolute novelty for Rome, for the way we understand it, live it, and create culture in this city,” said Panella. “For the first time, live painting became a narrative language of the future. The 15 young artists of the Giano Art Festival, standing before the imposing Arch, captured and translated its suggestions each in their own way, projecting them into a timeless dimension. The result is 15 canvases filled with energy, expanded sensitivity, evolving perspectives, and liberative cultural contaminations. An event that saw both Romans and tourists stop to watch the artists at work, breathing in the inspirations that moved the artworks as they came to life. A successful event, the first to see the full realization of Paint-L’arte racconta, a cultural platform dedicated to live painting that we launched a few months ago and which already has several other projects in the pipeline.”
“The first edition of the GIANO ART FESTIVAL was a resounding success!” commented de’ Cocci. “In just five hours, 15 blank canvases were transformed by the selected young artists into true works of art, with great enthusiasm from the participants who managed to interpret the essence of the event and infuse the Arch of Janus and its surroundings with their artistic vision. Our task now is to immediately begin planning for the second edition, which we hope will be even more extensive and engaging.”
