Brian Eno’s sonic and visual imagery arrives in Parma

In the first, ‘Seed’ will blossom, an artistic project that is divided and developed in two phases: the first involves the presentation to the public, for a period of approximately three months, of the site-specific audio installation ‘Installation for Giardini di San Paolo’, created by Brian Eno and the Turkish journalist and writer Ece Temelkuran. At the end – in the second phase – the work will find new life and definitive placement at the Casa del Suono. The listening experience experienced by the public in the Gardens of San Paolo will in fact be the subject of field recording and recorded on vinyl – printed in a single copy and edited by Eno himself – integrated into the permanent collection of the Casa del Suono, testifying to the collaboration between the British artist and the City of Parma. The imposing spaces of the Old Hospital Cruise will be home to ‘My Light Years’, the most complete collection ever created of Brian Eno’s installations and audiovisual works, exhibited together in a single place, a vast and monumental architectural complex finally returning to respond to its public and collective vocation.

“My feeling – explains Brian Eno – is that making art can be thought of as gardening: you plant some seeds and then you start to observe what happens between them, how they come to life and how they interact. This approach is sometimes called ‘procedural’. I call it ‘generative’. Just as a garden is different every year, a generative work of art could also be different every time you see or hear it. The implication – claims the inventor of ambient music – is that such a work is never truly finished, there is never a final state. At the Gardens of San Paolo I will create a new work designed specifically for this place, which is very suggestive and which represents a sort of secret place, closed for many years and today finally revealed”. On the collection that will be exhibited at the Ospedale Vecchio, the artist adds: “It really excited me. It is an immense building and it was a real challenge to understand how to distribute the works in such a large space. Some are contemporary, but most are older and include some of the very first light installations that I created in the 1970s. It will be a rather varied show and will require the public to walk long distances”, he assures.