Fare Cose 2026
Alfredo Pirri
curated by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi and Gianluca Collica
Fondazione Brodbeck Catania

Fare Cose is the title of Alfredo Pirri’s latest solo show presented at Fondazione Brodbeck in Catania. It constitutes a further chapter in the artist’s long-standing relationship with Sicily—and, more specifically, with the cultural landscape surrounding Mount Etna. Born in Calabria and based in Rome, Pirri first established this connection in 2004 through his collaboration with the Centro d’Arte Contemporanea Palazzo Fichera, following the exhibitions 11 (2000) and Forme e Pitture (2005).
Curated by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi and Gianluca Collica, the exhibition retraces significant moments in Pirri’s creative trajectory through an installation that foregrounds the narrative capacity of the works and the ways in which they collectively construct an overarching spatial narrative. Rather than relying on an external discursive framework, the exhibition functions as a dispositif that generates a network of visual and perceptual correspondences, shaping and orienting the visitor’s experience.
The exhibition is thus conceived as a system of relationships in which the works operate together as chapters within a dispersed narrative, unfolding both through the individual specificity of each work and through their articulation within the exhibition space.
Although seemingly self-evident, this proposition has recently regained prominence within critical discourse, particularly in relation to the often predominant role of narrative frameworks in contemporary exhibition practices. At a time when discursive mediation can at times overshadow the direct encounter with the artwork, Fare Cose reasserts the primacy of perception: the work of art is understood not merely as an object to be interpreted from without, but as a perceptual device capable of generating meaning through the viewer’s embodied experience.
This process also unfolds through the relationship each work establishes with the space that hosts it, activating a continuous dialogue between artwork and architecture, in which the narrative dimension emerges through the interaction of material, light, and environment.