Kathleen Cullen

 

 

Il mondo che non vedo

 

On view February 01 - March 10, 2015

 

Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts is pleased to announce an exhibition of photos by Fabiano Parisi


Fabiano Parisi’s work draws real strength from the empty, the beauty in decay within decrepit buildings all across the world: in the U.S., Poland, Belgium, Germany and Italy.


Parisi’s photographic project, Il mondo che non vedo (The world I do not see), started from this concept, focusing his attention on modern ruins: theatres, churches, factories and other places that remain abandoned from our recent past and present. Il mondo… focuses on the mysterious beauty of these abandoned locations, which the Parisi sees as still having a soul, almost living independently from human memory and experience. Parisis wishes "to render the grandeur and magnificence of these spaces, which are now forgotten and on the path to extinction, and thus seem to belong to a parallel world. Living in Rome, surrounded by classical paintings and frescos from the past and he fascinated by the classical monuments and ancient ruins that remain, imagining how they were hundreds of years ago.


"I was mainly guided by light. I seek to give my pictures a markedly rigorous quality, with a sharp contrast of light and shadow, and it was precisely in these places that I rediscovered the magic and symbolic significance of this contrast: light shining on the grand architectures of a decaying empire, with broad areas of shadow and deep black hues, as if to evoke bygone history and offer glimpses of a new one. Yet, they do not constitute a kind of map of neglect: for what matters is not so much the when and where, as the loss of the coordinates of these places that border on the surreal, altering the perception and sense of time, which seems to have frozen."


As for the abandoned theaters, Parisi titles his photos, “Il mondo che non vedo,” which translates as “the world I do not see.” According to Jennifer Mangione Voight, "When you look at an image like this, it’s hard not to see the ghosts of past occupants. There’s an impression that remains of the life that was once there."

 

 

Fabiano Parisi was born in Rome, where he lives and works. Following a degree in psychology, he chose to make photography his career. Parisi participated in the 54th Venice Biennale, Italian Pavilion and in Fotografia Festival Internazionale di Roma in 2012 at the Macro Museum. In 2012 he was shortlisted for the Young Masters Art Prize in London, and at the Arte Laguna Prize 2012 in Venice he won a special prize. In 2010 he was the winner of the Celeste Prize International for photography in New York.

 

He has had several solo shows, some of the most recent of which were held at Diana Lowenstein gallery in Miami in 2013, at the Glauco Cavaciuti gallery in Milan in 2013 and 2011, at the FotoLeggendo photography festival in Rome in 2011, at the Museo di Roma in Trastevere in 2010 and at the Fabbrica Borroni in Milan in 2009.

 

Special thanks to Soho Repro and Vespa Properties for making this exhibition possible.