– Ivan Sirtori –

THE CONTEST

SNFIA Art, a branch of SNFIA the Middle-Management National Insurance Company trade union, promotes the photographic contest I love my work. The purpose of this initiative, is to underline the role that the labour has engaged and takes up inside people life. SNFIA, is the trade union that represents and protect the high profiles insurance world, and faces up the crisis of the trade union representative, looking for any communication road, that can be useful to reach the complexity of contemporary world. Snfia, with a I love my work, promotes a survey on the theme ‘work in the third millennium’ starting from insurance sector, trying to overstep the routinely verbal communication and to explore the newness of the visual one. Third millennium men and women, more and more, live work not such as a daily instrument, but as the engine of oneself satisfaction. To work means to build your own social role and give place to your own talent. In other words, by work people can verify themselves into the capability to achieve their needs to social and spiritual statement. The contest is an invite to show this different sentiment through pictures that can catch it during daily working activity.

THE CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT

Citizens of all countries can participate free of charge. Each author will be able to participate with at least four pictures and no more than six pictures in digital shape. Photographs will have to be sent, by e-mail, starting from 20.06.2014 at h.24, until 30.11.2014 at h. 24. Among the pictures sent, the Jury will choose 50 photographs at incontestable judgment, will make a performance ranking of the best twelve and between these, will declare the contest winners for Senior and Junior sections. As compensation for merit, will be given to the Senior section winner a gross amount of 2.000 euro.  On the other hand, to the Junior Section winner will be commissioned the realization of a photographic project of communication for AMREF, African Medical and Research Foundation on the  subject Black Water and will be given the gross amount of 1.000 euro, as compensation for the carried out work. The amount will be given at the delivery of a photographic work articulated and completed on the above mentioned theme. The acceptance of the award, means the agreement and the attendance to the conditions of project realization as defined by SNFIA and AMREF. Works will be used by AMREF and SNFIA  for promotion and advertising initiatives. The realized pictures will be shown in a dedicated exhibit in a high-profile institutional location. The pictures of the exhibit, will be put on sale by public auction and the net proceeds will be fully donated to AMREF. The first selected 50 pictures will be published in a catalogue. Between these, the first 12 selected pictures will be used to realize 2016 SNFIA calendar.

For any other information about the contest, download the Contest Contest Regulation or visit the website www.lovemywork.org

Real time, Stefano Ciannella, 2014 © Snfia Arte

AC: When did you find out about your love for photography?

CP: My love for photography dates back to when I was in primary school and used my camera during school trips, but later became a true love when I bought my first digital camera and I could travel to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

AC: Why do you always choose to be the subject of your photos?

CP: I came to the necessity to take pictures of myself in time or maybe, I should say, the necessity itself evolved. My first self-portraits date back to when I was in high school: When I was 17, I felt marginalized and never appeared in those classic pictures with mates and friends and then I just wanted to be photographed as well: I was the only one who could do it because this way I did not get embarrassed.
For many years, it has been only about this: it was a way to keep the memory of myself. Later in 2006 – in a period in which I felt such a pain that I could not overcome – one day I started taking picture of myself, shooting a picture after the other and stopping only when I actually felt “released” from the mess I sensed in my stomach. Starting from that time, I realized that taking pictures of myself helped me exorcise in a way my discomforts and tell more about myself, something which I was never able to do with words but which I always needed to do.

AC: Do you feel inspired by any author?

CP: My approach to photography has always been instinctive and only during these last years, I finally discovered and appreciated the history of photography. I don’t know if I can actually say to be inspired by any specific author; however, there are certainly some photographers that struck me deep inside and who I love for something which I would like to be able to bring in my approach to photography, more than in the photographs themselves.
About Franesca Woodman I feel the “pain” and what I like about her the most is how she is able “to do research”: I am fascinated by the way she investigates the space and connects it to her deepest Self by employing her body and also I am fascinated by how taking pictures of herself becomes a true experience. In one of her retrospectives of some years ago in Siena there was a video in a loop shot by one of Woodman’s friends while she was taking picture of herself: it is a video which shows how she used to prepare everything in monastic silence and all of her movements are, even before the snapshot, art.
About Jan Saudek I love her search for beauty by expropriating the real which becomes almost grotesque. About Weston I love the sensuality of forms, about Roversi sensitivity and elegance, about Newton perfectionism, about Man Ray all of his experimentation.

AC: Why did you choose Polaroid cameras? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this medium?

CP: The Polaroid camera has been for years an object of desire for me: it was the camera of all the pictures during my childhood. Later it stayed unused and locked in the closet. For years, I have been thinking that eventually I might have brought it back to life. Hence, when I finally started using it more often with such curiosity, I realized that it was going to be active part of my experiences. The Polaroid camera holds inside so many characters and maybe many contradictions.
The Polaroid camera is a medium born to be “easy to use” (“point and shoot” commercials used to say): aside from more professional models, Polaroid cameras all have a fixed diaphragm and a sensor that, according to light, decides shooting time-lapses. “To change” the behavior of the camera with some tricks becomes a challenge and active part of the pre-production stage, which I love to experiment with. This pre-production stage implies also overcoming difficulties that arise while shooting self-portraits with these cameras. They sometimes don’t have delayed snapshot or, if they have it, it is quite severe (usually you have 10 seconds to position yourself), sometimes they don’t have the tripod connection and others misfire (they are all quite old cameras) exactly when you think you got the perfect photo (although we clearly know that it does not really exist).
Shooting with a Polaroid is almost cruel and close to what life really is: considering the cost of films, you have few occasions and very little margin of error. When you decide to move an image in your head on film, the photograph you get stands as the “unique possible moment” which, in spite of all the imperfections, succeeds sometimes in being “the perfect moment” for me and which I decide to show also to others. Finally, there is the frame: the film strongly characterizes the final image with tones and output; therefore, prior choices are needed to optimize results. Film calls for concentration to develop awareness of what you are going to do. Another very important element for me is that the film has its own size and consistency which you can touch and feel immediately (without “filters” due to developing times in the dark room for traditional films, the transfer process on pc or light room for digital frames). Moreover, for its chemical and physical properties, you can work on it “manually” and “with your hands” and this gives me the possibility to dialogue with the pictured myself like in a very personal auto-analysis.

AC: Talking about your past works, what is the one you were the most excited about and which one do you identify the most with?

CP: It is hard to answer this question because every one of my works is strongly tied to an important moment for me; however, I can tell you about those works which mean to me the important cornerstones of my career. Among these, I would like to mention “Musae”, a project carried on with Alan Marcheselli and which not only started our collaborations but also constituted the moment which taught me to think also in a planning perspective. In addition, “Io, tu e le rose” (You, me and the roses), which is the moment in which I tested the urgency of self-portraying to exorcise a negative moment and finally “L’anima è blu” (Soul is blue), a series of long exposures with pinhole camera.

AC: You mentioned your collaboration with Alan Marcheseli. Tell us about Polaroiders, the web community you founded with him.

CP: Polaroiders was born in 2010 thanks to Alan Marcheselli’s idea which I completely supported from the very beginning. We wanted to give a “virtual” home to passionate photographers to immediately develop, a place where to meet, confront and share a mutual passion, trying to anyway create concrete events so as all this could live also in the “real” world and actually promote many emergent Italians’ work which is underestimated in the traditional art system. Today, Polaroiders.it records almost 2000 enrollments, more than 25.000 photographs, about 50 active events and exhibitions both in Italy and abroad and two Snapshots Festivals.

AC: What projects are you working on now?

CP: I will soon start experimenting long exposure with pinhole cameras and Impossible 8×10 film (the new company which in 2008, after Polaroid bankrupted, bought the last plant in Europe starting again the production of instant developing films). However, I have not yet defined the project so well in my mind and that urgent need which leads me to shoot has not yet come.

AC: What is still “almost” in you?

CP: I feel “almost” in many things, but mainly “almost” is the condition I feel when I need to shoot, it is that undefined perception which I try to define, something I would like to say but stays wordless until I get in front of the camera.

It is about this December American edition of Vogue, where photographer Annie Leibovitz and stylist Grace Coddington produced a particular service where model and actress Jessica Chastain is playing the role of the protagonists of eight works of art.
The ability of the photographer in reconstructing the compositions, studying lines, colors and lights is summed up with the stylist’s sensitivity, which was able to find the most apt high fashion attire, with the result of a series of shots worthy of competing with the charm of the original works. The selection of the paintings, splendidly reinterpreted by Vogue, is exceptional and alternates more famous works with pieces less known to the public.

The actress, who is Oscar candidate, appears in all her splendor and, wearing high fashion clothing, is able to perfectly identify with the atmospheres of these wonderful art pieces: her diaphanous skin and fire red hair enhance her delicate look which seems to be recalling that of a Pre-Raphaelite muse. Indeed, the cover starts off exactly with a painting which is considered by many as the emblem of such art movement for its form, colors and iconography: it is Flaming June (1894-95) by Frederic Leighton, one of late Victorian Age masterpieces. The slight make-up and lips with a vague smile bring back all the ethereal naturalness of the original muse who lays down on a red drape, wearing a perfectly modern and suggestive calendula yellow dress by stylist Olivier Theyskens.

In the article opening page, warm colors prevail once again with tonal modulations in the model’s hair, who is lying in an room with an Oriental ornamentation, on a low-rise mattress, while she is absorbed by her thoughts and lifts her arms up to let them rest on her head. Although she is framed from a different perspective, the setting, the prurient and dreamy pose follow those of Henri Matisse’s Odalisque in Red Culottes (1869-1954). Also, the dress, which is by Marc Jacobs, is close to those Turkish trousers which give the name to the painting.

The whole atmosphere, instead, change completely in the next shot where the color scale goes from sky blue in the background wall to the dark cerulean blue in Alexander Wang’s dress, passing by a shiny aqua green in the young actress’ eyes, penetrating as those of the lady in the painting Le Retour de la Mer (Back from the Sea) (1924) by Félix Vallotton.

Wearing a gray dress by Oscar de la Renta, Jessica identifies with the interpretation of American President Grover Cleveland’s wife, who was portrayed by Anders Zorn in 1899. The distinguished beauty, the marble candor of the setting, the background grooves bring us back further in time: she is a statute in a Greek temple.

For another stunning shot, the actress plays the role of Ria Munk, who was portrayed by Gustav Klimt after her tragic death between 1917 and 1918. It is one of the most beautiful female portraits by the brilliant Austrian painter, as well as one of his last works. Leibovitz’s shot combines all the charm of the technique, Klimt’s iconography and style, which is still the favorite inspirational source for fashion designers (please look up the photographic series made up by Steven Meisel for December 2007 Vogue Italy and called “Vogue Patterns”). Vera Wang’s chiffon dress, decorated by hand, perfectly reproduces the unfinished quality of the painting (the dress and the floor are just sketched with charcoal); the background is extremely rich in floral motifs and comes alive as a real blooming garden.

Through a skilful play of colors and lights, photography is also able to reproduce Vincent Van Gogh’s confused brush strokes. In 1888, the Dutch artist portrayed a young woman from Arles and gave her the name of Mousmé, as the Japanese girl from Pierre Loti’s tale, which particularly enthralled the painter. Compared to the painting, the photograph is horizontally placed; however, it is still traditionally arranged with the model standing over a monochrome background. Clothing is designed by Alexander McQueen and reproduces the very same decorative play of the long row of red buttons in the vertical stripes coat, which gets lost in the cloud of a big polka dots skirt.

The only photograph in which the model is not wearing any dress is paradoxically the one which is inspired to Magritte’s La Robe de soirée (The evening gown) (1955). We know that Magritte’s titles are always misleading and apparently very far from the submitted subject. The shot as well remains enigmatic for its obscurity: the red hair stands out from a stretched light blue background within a turquoise sky and a quiet sea: the moon, which holds from time immemorial the reference to night in a free meaning association, stands for the unknown and mystery.

The last shot is inspired by Julia Margaret Cameron’s photos: she has been producing intense and profound portraits following the stylistic language of Pre-Raphaelites painters. Leibovitz reproduced this distinctive character: that use of focus, which is sometimes even stretched to the “out of focus”, disregards clearness and aims instead at researching plastic effects, which are possibly close to Leonardo’s sfumato.

“Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”; hence, this is a law of physics which we can apply also to art history, to the evolution of representational culture, to the ensemble of icons which constitute our shared visual imaginary.

Credits: www.vogue.com

]]> https://www.almostcurators.org/en/zoom-benedetta-falugi/feed/ 0 https://www.almostcurators.org/en/art-adv-marco-rea/ https://www.almostcurators.org/en/art-adv-marco-rea/#comments Wed, 15 May 2013 10:34:26 +0000 http://www.almostcurators.org/?p=752 Since the late Nineteenth Century, the billboard, emblem of modernity, has invaded the walls of the great capitals. An urban language that has since become an integral part of the artistic language and it has inspired several authors. Today, even more, the all-present intrusiveness of advertising has made these images almost invisible to our eyes. Marco Rea, born in 1975, attempts to give new life to the figures that populate the world of contemporary marketing using the billboard as a support and appropriating a process he defines “inverse” to the street art: he doesn’t bring the art in the street, but the street in the art.

Of his beginning near to the practice of graffiti remains the technique of spray paint that uses expertly to intervene directly on the faces and the bodies of fashion models. Flipping through the glossy magazines he has realized that these figures, aseptic but alive, represent for him the model par excellence to start. In each work launches a challenge with the case: the subjects are the ones that someone else has chosen for him, the poses have been carefully studied by advertising photographers of fashion.

The artist’s work, therefore, aims to return the unicum‘s aura to an object that has been reproduced in thousands of copies.  The models now appear as distant figures, surrounded by a dimension without space or time. However, through the veil of paint, Marco Rea instills personality and soul in those subjects otherwise so featureless: the eyes, dark and empty, without pupils, give  to his women an unreadable and enigmatic expression that allows the viewer to look at himself in those eyes and take possession of that portrait.

http://marcorea.carbonmade.com/

]]> https://www.almostcurators.org/en/zoom-anna-di-prospero/feed/ 0