“Commonplace (Unité d’habitation)” | 2011

Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania. May — September, 2011

The exhibition at the Brodbeck Foundation occupies a former warehouse that is saturated with color – the three colors of acronym RGB, red, green and blue, which represent all potentially reproducible colors – diffused in the space by large Plexiglas colored filters placed over the skylights and the window. On the walls there are three large paintings from the cycle “Unité d’habitation”, made with layers of oil paint on wood, which refer to the plan in elevation of the units of Le Corbusier of the same name. These paintings are in dark hues, almost black (ivory black, Cassel earth, and Prussian blue) responding to the saturation of the color in the space. The installation also included six works of the series “Vis à Vis (datura)”. In the adjacent warehouse, at the inauguration, Massimiliano Sapienza aka Massimo saturated the space with the sounds from the recordings of Parisi’s previous works about the colors red (Chiostro dello Scalzo, Florence, 2010) and green (Botanical Garden of Parma, 2007) but with a new composition for blue, up to this point unrealized in his work in terms of sound. From this arose the work “Blu.Tally” exhibited at Museo Riso in Palermo. In this sense the sound confirm and amplifies the idea and the need for a density in the experience of vision, making it physical in relationship with the architectural space.

A new cycle of the works “Under the bridge” – representing three of the most important Sicilian rivers – Simeto, Salso and Platani – were also included in the show at the entrance of the Foundation as well as two of the four sculptures “Intorno” realized in 1997, chosen by the author from the Brodbeck collection.