Life Long Camera (2017–2019)
Since 2 years I am mainly concerned in the creation, installation and operation of a different number of self made cameras, they all are born from a long term project in which the aim is to build such a device allowing the making of a single picture which exposure time coinciding with my own remaining lifespan. In the project Life Long Camera I play with photography changing its normal connotation and its components (body, lens, exposure time and photosensitive material).
Last May I travelled south from Amsterdam until Naples to reincarnate a story with a dubious origin that I read once, behind me, at every of the many stops, I left cameras hunting time.
As soon as I settled them I activated the shutter which I would close only in my way back.
Together with the idea of a camera float the one of picture and of the ways of looking at it.
Intrigued by this fragmented reality, fooled by ultramodern devices delivering crispy and targeted photos hidden behind a heavily coated plastic (too much TV) I seek pictures who entail my private story (hidden stories) and those which, rather than subjects in space deal with the concept of time in space (Estética Morelli and Long Life Camera).
This project was especially designed for the Rietveld Glass Pavilion in which I made collide many of my interests and fascination and studies over photography.
The geometry of the space and its details allowed me to create a playground where various narratives develop depending on the viewer’s approach and interest.
Consider the pavilion as the artist personal view on photography where every entrance bring you to one of his way to approach it.
Estetica Morelli (2019)
I took my car and camouflaged it as if it was the one of an aesthetician calling it “Estetica Giovanni Morelli”.
I dressed it up as if Giovanni Morelli (art connoisseur of the late 20th century and creator of the famous homonym method) was one of the many nail artist travelling and working across Europe, his sketches of hands referring to classic renaissance masters were all over the car.
I picked up all my self-made cameras and shuffled in the vehicle and starting in Amsterdam I stopped at friends and people I trusted in Harmelen, Dusseldorf, Vicenza, Bologna, Pistoia, Roma and Naples.
To each friends I visited I explained my story and the story of those cameras, asking if they could host them and let them capture time while I would have kept travelling.
Each time I stopped I placed some of them and activated the shutter which let the light came in until my return, in my way back to north. Once arrived at my destination, in a squares of Naples I took a self portrait of the duration of 3 hours while looking at my fastest camera, placed in the other side of the square.
This is a tribute and a reinterpretation of a pseudo-fictional story I read once and which you can find in the chapter 73 of a book called Hopscotch, written by Julio Cortazar in 1963 and in which I see a holy truth I wish to share with you.
Capturing time in such a way it is an unconventional method of dealing with photography that request trust and allows doubts and randomness as engines while demanding patience and attention to enjoy its results.
Xavier Library (2019)
A camouflaged curiosity, a tribute to a book lover and a attempt to keep things together.
A book containing a single page from each book belonging to Xavier Fernandez Fuentes own private collection. So to say, a book of books that Xavier directly choose to buy, exchange, steal or pick up from the street rather than it’s own work as a way to meet him.
Xavier Library and publications were shown at the Rietveld Library to commemorate him, his library was then eventually spread among the students and alumni.
Too Much TV (2018)
Scavenging bares bitter fruits. It is the result of exploring materials that we use in our everyday life and which content we are unaware of. The heavily coated plastic sheets used in the installation are found inside broken lcd screens (also present in smartphones and laptops). In some terms, these screens represent the materialization of the concept from which the objects are derived, they simply are the concept in form.
Residency at Het Vijfde Seizoen, Den Dolder, NL (2016)
A Camera Obscura connecting the forest and the institute, the intention of creating a place of discovery and reflection over the condition of mental institutes in the Dutch culture and the role of an artist in society, an excuse to meet.
Built in the size of an ordinary isolation cell or of an average single bedroom in Amsterdam. The four side camera was placed right in the middle of a field.
Kodak photosensitive paper, 40x60cm was directly exposed to the light passing trough a Rodenstock 360mm f/6.8 lens, later made positive by contact printing.
Asking friends and residents met during the residency to sit or stand in front of the camera to create an excuse to talk.
Every photo needed test prints made directly inside the 6 square meter camera obscura. The time for processing and developing each photograph was between 10 to 30 minutes. This allowed a communication between the photographer and the subject despite the physical distance due to the fact that the photographer was inside his camera while the subject portrayed was on the outside.
Uncertain of every single photograph I was glad to hide, creating a new way of dealing with my own photography, me inside a space, strangely together with the others.
Photograms (2016)
Karl Bosselfeldt walk with Jorge Luis Borges in the Real Jardín Botánico of Madrid, the amateur listen attentively.
Direct printing on photo paper using plant and flower bloomed in the Real Jardin as a negative. Another way to photograph without a camera.