Room 1
The first of thirty rooms in the exhibition itinerary of Palazzo Butera is a homage to Tom Phillips, an English artist who died in 2022.
The floors
The new floors in all the galleries are composed of polished calcestruzzo, which is a compound of cement, gravel and sand. These heterogeneous materials react differently when polished, such that the gravel gleams like a mirror whilst the concrete remains dull. This difference causes the floor to flicker with countless small reflections embedded in the opaque concrete surface.
The floor has been divided into sections using iron or aluminium filaments that prevent the smooth surface from cracking. The floor is detached from the walls of the rooms by a few centimeters, giving the impression of an autonomous volume. This serves a dual purpose of highlighting the new architectural intervention and giving the exhibited works the illusion of being placed upon a raised dais. The rooms are kept warm with underfloor heating.
Rima’s wall (1991)
We have given Rima’s Wall central importance as it is one of Phillips’ masterpieces. an exploration of the possibilities of drawing to continuously reshape its energy in contact with music, African art and literature.
Curriculum Vitae is made up of twenty panels created over seven years. It is a dynamic encyclopedia of painting and collage, of literary heroes and musical genius, of childhood im- pressions and personal encounters.
Above the Curriculum Vitae are hung the Terminal Greys.
The three crosses (1996-1997) and the drawings on the end walls, including the large 1492 Memento Mori (1992), are meditations on the Sacred and the Profane.