Parisi's Universe

Domenico Parisi, known as Ico, was born in Palermo on September 23, 1916, to Edoardo, an artist, and Olimpia Volpes, both Sicilians living in Piedmont. In 1925, the Parisi family moved to Como. He went on to serve an apprenticeshipat the studio of Giuseppe Terragni.

In 1948, at the premises in Via Diaz, born the idea for a “furniture studio”, which would present Parisi’s exclusive contemporary furniture designs that were so innovative they needed to be understood. Luisa had the task of making this furniture more domestic.

Followed by Fontana who, along with his canvases displayed on the walls at “La Ruota”, proposed dishes and small vases in terracotta with cuts and holes, which Luisa had a flair for incorporating in her clients’ homes.

While the ceramics arrived at “La Ruota” directly from the artists’ studios, the vases and sculptures in glass were mainly Venetian and created at the furnaces of Venini (the famous ornaments in the shape of an obelisk) or Barovier & Toso. 

1956–70: Glass and ceramic, expression of domestic design

The 1950s were marked by considerable ferment and social change, generated by strong economic growth that conditioned and influenced daily living and, indirectly, public taste. There was a radical, overall change in lifestyle.

All this, combined with commercial demands and Ico’s great need to challenge himself, resulted in the design of various Murano glass vases, whose form was simple yet ground-breaking, and which were produced by Barovier & Toso.

In the following years Parisi dreamed up, again with Barovier  & Toso, the “Vetri Crudeli” (Cruel Glass) series of ornamental sculptures. They were small, highly conceptual artworks.

The “Vetri Crudeli” paved the way for the creation of the perhaps more well-known sculpture in glass – an oxymoron if ever there was one – the hyperrealist “Polentina” (Plate of Polenta). 

In the early 1960s he began designing ceramic pieces, probably as a result of meeting Pompeo Pianezzola, an artist and the art director of Zanolli & Sebellin, one of the most celebrated artistic ceramic manufactories in the Vicenza area. 

For them Parisi designed, with Luisa’s help, a first series of objects based on geometric solids, whose perfect proportions revealed Ico’s Rationalist roots.

Ico also added a touch of his innate irony, his playfulness, and the right amount of intense and acid colours, then in vogue, that make the objects so attractive. 

For the first time, Parisi represented, albeit through small ceramics, his almost obsessive fascination with the entire human body, seen primarily through its individual details.  

It is exemplified by the “Bocca” (Mouth) vase, the “Occhi” (Eye) spheres, and two similar objects, in particular, which represent opposites: were the sculpture-cum-vase and the “Impronta” (Imprint) bowl.

In the 70s he designed a new series of vases with Luisa, which this time were all coordinated through form, each being based on a 20-cm square module and the incorporation of one or more stainless steel bands.

1986–96: from design to objet d’art

It was the 1970s. Parisi’s work was increasingly orientated towards a new utopian and existential concept of living, expressed in a series of theoretical and artistically provoking projects. His activity as an architect and designer became more and more marginal. 

For around a decade Parisi devoted himself almost entirely to experimenting with art as a radical exposé of the deterioration of the human condition: research that led to a succession of exhibitions and performances, both in Italy and abroad.

It was not until 1986 that Parisi returned to built architecture and to design, on the occasion of his first anthological show at the PAC in Milan and with his solo exhibition ‘Terra&Terra Tre’ at Cerro di Laveno.

Here he presented a series of new earthenware objects made by himself in his studio. They consisted of cups, plates, soup tureens, and even a radio which were ‘inhabited’ by grotesque characters or groups of open-mouthed creatures. more disturbing than ironic.

The collaboration with the Fornace Ibis and the resumption of the working relationship with Zanolli marked a new period, characterized by a renewed interest in design. From that moment until a few months before he died, Parisi designed innovative ceramic objects and glass pieces at full speed, to the extent that, in some cases, the same subject was created in both materials, almost contemporaneously.