Not.O (Not Ordinary) is a collection of 4 cabinets that represent the epitome of Sicilian character, combined with a design approach from a distance of over 1000 kilometers, but very close when it comes to substance. The impetus of Ferruccio Laviani, a designer who crosses boundaries of space and time, meets with an opportunity, in the project of his friend Felice Rizzotti and the latter’s sister Adele (with deep roots in their homeland), to delve into a geographical context, that of Sicily, in an initiative where furniture is “just” the tip of an iceberg, which below the surface can narrate one, ten, even a hundred stories.
Because in this case the stories of the collections arrive before the collections themselves, offering the necessary condition for Not.O to avoid being just another series of well-made, attractive products, while instead formulating a guided pathway that starts with interpretation of the why and the how, reaching a finale that then puts the observer in touch with the product. The why and the how raise the bar of expectations, and in the end – when the objects are unveiled – the gaze shifts beyond aesthetics, beyond the subjective concept of personal pleasure.
Avola, Caltagirone, Enna and Ribera, four Sicilian cities, each with its own identity, are also the names of the four offerings presented in the magical setting of Palazzo Biscari in Catania. Four places, each of which reveals a special narrative, the cornerstone on which Laviani has constructed forms, measurements and colors. Four pictures in an exhibition that combine in a larger tableau, for a synthesis that speaks of craftsmanship taken to its highest levels: from the Sicilian Carts and Puppets for the Ribera model, to the traces of the Roman Empire and Magna Graecia that have inspired Avola; from the art of pottery combined with thinking that references Lucio Fontana for Caltagirone, to Futurism that points the way for the creation of Enna. A seamless way of entering and emerging in and from the infinite worlds offered by Sicily.
This path of the Rizzotti family, together with Ferruccio Laviani, has not been free of difficulties, starting precisely with the people who have then given the cabinets their material form: men and women accustomed for hundreds of years and many generations to repeating the same gestures on a daily basis, gestures that have become impeccable over time, but always, exclusively devoted to the Moors, the Pine Cones, the Carts, the Puppets, and so on. With the force of passion and intellect, Felice and Ferruccio have slowly opened a breach in the everyday practice of these artisans, an opening that allows light to enter. And this light has revealed an idea and its enactment in concrete form.
Welcome to the South.
Photo © Frank Catucci
Photo © Frank Catucci
