With the project "Serie Imperiale" by Flavio Favelli NOS is awarded the second edition of Italian Council, the public announcement held by the General Directorate for Contemporary Art and e Architecture and Outlying Urban Areas – part of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism to support the production of new art projects by Italian artists.

The project allowed the creation of the first Favelli's work created from the detachment of a wall paintings and has been realized in three stages during one year collaboration with the Institutional partner Fondazione Rocca dei Bentivoglio di Valsamoggia.  

The imposing diptych that has been finally created is now displayed on loan to the MAMbo of Bologna, the first work by the artist exhibited in the collection.

For "Imperiale Series" NOS has developed a specific plan to involve the actors of the reference territory, Valsamoggia (BO); then coordinated the production of three project phases carried out in two different sites, realized the dedicated publication in collaboration with the graphic studio Lupo Burtscher and the publisher Corraini Edizioni, produced the first immersive documentation in VR of a work by Flavio Favelli thanks to the technological contribution of the startup DeyeVR.

Elisa Del Prete and Silvia Litardi curated the three stages Pittura, Strappo, Otturazione.
In the stage called Pittura the artist realized two site-specific wall paintings in two symbolic places in the centre of Bazzano, the Casa del Popolo and the ex miniCoop, integral parts of the local life and culture, today in a state of abandonment and underused, soon to serve different purposes.

The two sites, symbols of Market and Politics tell of a state of passage, narrating the transformation underway not only in the two spaces, but also in the overall social, cultural and commercial fabric (as well as in terms of town-planning), in which political commitment, cooperative enterprise and sociality are called upon to examine their own present and future. 

The subject chosen by the artist for the two wall paintings adds another layer of historical reflection: the bizarre iconography of two historic stamps dating back to the Kingdom of Italy, belong to the ‘Imperiale’ series first issued in 1929 and in use right up to 1946, portraying the face of Victor Emanuel III with a further ‘overprint’ that was necessary to show the stamp belonged to a different state (here in particular that of the ‘Repubblica Sociale Italiana’ and ‘Zara’, that of the German occupation post-8th September 1943). Favelli reproduces the effigy of the sovereign on the wall just as he was originally depicted on the historic stamps, leading to a reflection on imagery and on the signs of a very precise period in the history of Italy, which still constitutes a period fraught with delicate issues for our country.

The successive stage of the Strappo (meaning the detachment of wall paintings) has been realized by the Camillo Tarozzi Restoration Workshop, and consist in the transposition onto canvas of the two paintings, and in their transformation into a diptych. The strappo, usually carried out for the sake of preserving a historical image, was decided upon in this case even prior to the creation of the work, ‘mobilising’ the two paintings originally designed for the two settings.

Lastly, the Otturazione (‘Filling’) will constitute the final stage of the process. Once the two paintings have been removed from the walls of the ex miniCoop and from the Casa del Popolo, Favelli will work on the two ‘holes’ left by the removal of the paintings, filling the gaps with fresh plaster. A simple act of grouting and patching, which will leave a trace of the process, once more evoking the presence of the work.