Date:        16 September - 15 October, 2010
Location:  Palazzo Riso, Palermo, Italy

solo show by MDR, curated by Giovanni Iovane

"Mezza parola! (Half-word!)" is a warning in Sicilian, practically a short threat accompanied by a quick hand gesture. But it’s also an essential and particular figure of speech that, in its terseness, leaves the field wide open to a proliferation of clearly implicit metaphors. Maria Domenica Rapicavoli’s project IF YOU SAW WHAT I SAW (2008-2010) is made up of a series of videos and photographs, of the images and figures from her residence in the famous town of Corleone. The very first thing she did there was to gather the circumstantial evidence of a place that, in reality and in film-fiction, symbolizes the Mafia.

But her investigation, doesn’t stop at reportage and it doesn’t reveal any secret other than the linguistic and imaginary one that, from whatever way you look at it,  the symbol is actually a metaphor. The process of transformation (or betrayal) is also reflected in the artistic experience, to which the ironic title IF YOU SAW WHAT I SAW alludes. In the Galleria S.A.C.S., Maria Domenica Rapicavoli presents two videos that reccount the silence or “mezze parole” that are part of Corleone.

Every afternoon the townsmen meet in the municipal park to play bowls. In Waiting for Nothing the faces of players are never seen. The banging of the bowls are like shots that break the monotony of another passing day.

Silence is the man of honor’s primary. The Mafia is made up of “mezze parole” and rules and codes that have to be deciphered. The video h. 17:06 seeks to recall the metaphor of the game, composed of codes and gestures to be interpreted ... and not just seen virtue. Giovanni Iovane