OBSCURA. Ritratti intorno alla fotografia 2018

Personaggi ritratti:

Maurizio Galimberti

Pepi Merisio

Giorgio Lotti

Gianni Pezzani

Gianni Berengo Gardin

Enrico Bossan

Carlo Orsi

Joe Oppedisano

Lorenzo Merlo

Massimo Minini

Paolo Clerici

Renato Corsini

Maria Vittoria Backhaus

Giacomo Bretzel

Giovanna Calvenzi

Michele Smargiassi

Francesco Cito

Silvia Camporesi

Franco Fontana

Nino Migliori

Claudio Amadei

Bruno Sorlini

Marco Anelli

Mario Trevisan

Paola Mattioli

Maurizio Rebuzzini

Oliano Lucas

Paolo Ventura

Donata Pizzi

Ramona, we were sitting at the bar in front of the Museum that is exposing your latest work. We talked about the colors, maybe I told you about that little intriguing book on the subject I had just read. From this we went to talk inevitably of white and black and, remember, you argued that black is the set of all colors while white is nothingness, emptiness, absence. I tried to convince you of the contrary by telling you that white is the set of all the colors with irrefutable evidence, reminding you that Sir Isaac Newton had already demonstrated it at the end of the seventeenth century in a way not contestable with his famous “album”. You rebuffed me decided that white is nothingness, emptiness while the black of the night sky contains all the stars of the universe, the black curtain contains all the representations, the black of the bedroom all our dreams and our deepest nightmares … .I could not but give up on such an argument and give you reason …… ..After a few days you asked me to take a picture illustrating the work you were doing. Honored I accepted with joy, enthusiasm and just as much curiosity. Arrived that day, illustratomi what I had to do, obscured the room you opened the shutter. One imagines in front of a sort of “forgetful fairy” dressed in the classic turquoise dress, with a cone-shaped hat and a magic wand … … of all this. Here is a rare species of black feline, a cross between a panther and a cheetah, which, gripping as if it were a sharp dagger that his kind of flashlight, jumps and zompettes from side to side pulling slashes to the right and lacks in trying to free from the black that contains all that image that holds perfectly in mind. We tried several times because you did not see in the car what you had impressed perfectly in his mind. Then you gave light back to the room with enormous relief, because lifting so many times that stack of books, I confess, had definitely worn out. I followed with a lot of interest the evolution of your work with the various characters chosen, seeing how you always managed with small ideas to create an amazing image. I remember seeing you arrive at the Museum with that little white cardboard box punctured in the background reproducing the M.M. Gallery. and the beautiful photo obtained then with this one. I imagine a huge cylinder of magician, black ça va sans dire, a magic wand but that in truth looks like a strange flashlight, and here I see magically out of the black rectangles with fantastic images of characters from the world of photography. After all, having clear ideas and the poetry to be transmitted, it takes very little to do great things. To you two, a black background and a strange torch. Even Lucio Fontana needed two things, a monochrome colored background and a sharp instrument. You mentioned to me once in a distant episode of your life that you still see today as if they were behind a glass, inside a frame. I think that also for this you masterfully manage to close the frame, to see the photograph before taking it, behind the glass, with its frame with a lot of hanger and maybe even already hanging on a wall. Looking at your work I am reminded of that immense masterpiece of Bill Viola “Ocean with out” that I saw at the Venice Biennale in 2007 in the beautiful church of San Gallo. A wall of water and slowly from behind came one at a time of the figures that lentissimamente crossed the wall to appear for a minute and then just as lentissimamente return back. From creepy, to be breathless. I imagine seeing your show that for the need was poorly lit and to stop in front of every picture completely black and to see slowly appear the portrait you performed …… a handful of seconds and then see it slowly disappear into that black that contains everything , as you explained to me, as I move on to the next photo ……

Mario Trevisan