'Simulacra': Why work in different mediums?

Photography has since its inception carried the expectation of factual representation of reality. Yet that has never been the case, from the first shutter release subjectivity has dominated every image (moral and cultural bias of the photographer, choices of gear or camera settings, darkroom preferences, etc). This lingering illusion is now dissipating, with pervasive algorithms in digital cameras making decisions on our behalf and the widespread use of post-processing (filters, composites, etc). One of the objectives of this series is to expose our lingering assumptions of ‘truth’: careful analysis will reveal that the situations are staged and the subjects are friends posing on script.

As our relationship with images evolves alongside technological developments, new questions arise: can we still hope to separate reality and fiction? Will our memories ever be real again? Is there any truth in photographs?

The ‘tableaux’ also loosely reference contemporary issues: racism, homelessness, guns, toxic patriarchy, food contamination, privilege, isolation of the elderly, etc. They raise issues of numbness, divide, depiction, and the role of photography.

My latest project ‘Simulacra’ has large images (50” x 40”, 127cm x 102cm) paired to blocks of clear epoxy encasing an object from the set of the image (12.6” x 9.4” x 3”, 32cm x 24cm x 7.6cm, or larger).

Reminiscent of anthropological specimens or police evidence, the epoxy blocks add questions to the conversation: what is being preserved and why? How do different material forms influence our memory formation? They preserve the disregarded, ordinary objects usually ignored: a broken bottle, a plastic flower, rotten food, medical vials. They are time capsule of our struggles.

The staged photographs and epoxy-encased objects are linked, telling a story from different angles. Each seems to question the relation with the other, and which one is closest to the construction and preservation of shared experience. Each carries individual projections. Referentiality is removed although we still understand what we see.

Simulacra are iconographic visions, both archetypal and artificial. The photographic simulacrum explores the boundaries between reality and fiction, emphasizing the connections of the simulated reality to our daily lives. The encased objects investigate the relation between object, form, and memory.

Combining sculptural forms and photographs with painterly references creates both a sense of familiarity and disconnect: what are the connection with current issues and what is the meaning of representation?

Japan Artist Residency: the 'White' Project

Back in 2018 I had been selected for an artist residency in Japan. On my way there I stopped to visit my father in Italy; he passed away while I was with him, and my life took a very different turn. The residency organizers were kind enough to hold my selection until the following year, but coincidentally in 2019 I was also invited to China and after some deliberation I decided to attend both. This was an opportunity I just could not miss: to explore two countries that had been on my dream list for a very long time, while also comparing vastly different Asian cultures.

I have a fascination with Japanese photography, its depth, its distinctness, finding it deeper and more introspective than its dominant Western cousin. I find the latter often either stuck in the past (b&w, alternative processes, new topographies re-runs) or lacking depth (empty narratives, academic, distanced reportage, stuck on the surface of things). It resonates with my belief that photography is the expression of the soul, not the recorder of outer appearances. All I had to do now was to experience Japan first hand.

The first impression was one of normalcy, way more familiar than the radical outlandishness of China (which I had just left): one whispers, the other screams, white versus red. A comforting sense of safety, cleanliness, precision. I remember my first visit to one of the omnipresent corner stores: mesmerizing packaging, profusion of exotic candies, calorie warnings on all products, lack of fresh vegetables. I realized then that it was going to be harder to unwrap this place, that Japan was hidden behind closed doors, a poetry book to be digested line by line.

I started with a month-long artist residency in Takeo, a small town in the rural South best known for its historic onsen. A drastic change of pace for me, isolated, introspective. Cycling, walking, magnificently colored fall foliage. Integrating what I thought I knew and what I was experiencing, the long shadows of the past cast on the present, old and new. In photography terms, I started to reconcile the harsh post-war b&w images with the contemporary soft and colorful psychological ones.

I recall the conversations with the 83 year old slightly built but fierce restaurant owner, her recollections of the explosion of the atomic bomb nearby, without a trace of sadness or anger in her voice. She was drinking, smiling constantly, radiating gratitude for life, surrounded by her friends, making fun of me as the flow of sake made my gesticulations increase. I could not help compare her vitality with my parents, both deceased by the same age.

Past and present co-exist, trauma and insularity, community above individuality. The migration away from the countryside is quite extreme, I was happy to have left Tokyo for the end of my trip.

Gratitude for my host Yukina Matsumoto, her patience with my cluelessness and inability to speak the language, who opened secret doors for me: karaoke bars, portrait of elders, explaining local customs, even walking me through my first grocery experience (lesson: you shop for the day, not the week).

At the end of the residency my wife joined me to travel by train: Hiroshima, Naoshima, Kyoto, Tokyo, Arita, Himeji, Imari, Itsukushima, Kamakura, Kanazawa, Karatsu. With the help of old friends (Seiko Tachibana setting us up with an artist friend elegant apartment in Tokyo, Reiko Yagi introducing us to one of the oldest obi makers, Chuzen Kin bringing us to trendy restaurants where we literally had to walk through a hole in the wall) and new friends we met along the way we were able to get a glimpse behind the curtains.

In my images of Japan I wanted to reflect all those dichotomies: the traumatic past through dramatic black and white (referencing old masters: Tomatsu, Hosoe, Moryama), the ‘innocence’ of contemporary media with the use of pink tones, the isolation of the present through de-saturation and high keys (referencing the contemporaries: Kawauchi, Hatakeiama, Ishino, Okuiama). There is a fine line between cultural appropriation and integration; time, understanding, respect make the difference. The result for me has been ‘White’, an artist book (or scroll, to be precise), in which multiple narratives co-exist and small desaturated images printed on washi paper are continuously paired, requiring time and study to be absorbed.

Here some images of the artist book:

Here some friends and preparations for the show:


And here some selected images from the book:

And a last goodbye, hoping to be back soon:

Tao Hua Tan Artist Residency in China

How do we visually explore a foreign place and culture? How do we integrate the history and our biases, while responding to the experience of being there?

There is a distant land that since my youth has been rooted in my imagination through the tales of others, fascinating in its mystery, daunting from the media profiling, a thick book asking to be read. So there wasn’t a moment of hesitation when I received an invitation to attend the fall 2019 session of the Tao Hua Tan international artist residency in Anhui province of China. Conceived by the visionary collaboration of a businessman, a leading art curator, and a well-known print maker, the program invites top artists from across the world for 3 weeks at the ‘By the Peach Blossom Pool Arts and Holiday Riverside Resort‘. My initial trepidation at being the only photo-based artist among some of the best painters was soon replaced by the excitement of being exposed to the different engagement of this new (to me) medium. It became an adventure into a different way of seeing, a new perspective. Gradually an idea emerged, fueled by an old fascination of mine for the intersection of historically isolated art forms. It is something I had already started with the ‘3 Eyes’ collaboration. Also something I am currently immersed in, with epoxy casts as part of my current project ‘Simulacra’. Can photography and painting (or sculpture) co-exist, and how do they relate to each other? I settled for a double-layer approach. First I created a splash of red using available paint. Once dried, I brought it into the environment, to carry all the symbolism of red and photographed ‘staged’ environments. The final step for the pieces that went into the museum show at the end of our residency was to physically integrate the printed image into stretched canvases, painted red, cut in pieces to conceal and support at the same time.

Red is everywhere in China: in the streets, the clothes, in stores, in the omnipresent flags, etc. It is clearly the national color, embedded in the history, loaded with meanings. It cannot be ignored, both by its presence and its weight.

While there I also had the pleasure of photographing Gordan Novak for a magazine editorial, start new friendships that are slowly blooming into new collaborations, document for the organizers all the art created. I was also invited to stay at the Shanghai studio of LiuJan and welcomed into the houses and studios of foremost Chinese contemporary artists.

Soon after returning from this maelstrom of new ideas and stimuli I went into the sensory deprivation of mandated ‘stay-at-home’ isolation. This somehow returned the experience into the magical, distant, exotic. I hope in time it will eventually prove to be the first chapter of a longer narrative. In the meantime, my profound gratitude goes to Guoping Wei, Liu Jian, and Gordan Novak for the incredible opportunity.


Here are the final pieces, now part of the future ‘World Art Museum’ of Anhui province:

Here the ‘red’ environments’:

Finally, a few portraits of my fellow artists:

PDN Photo Annual

New series (Dis)Connected wins PDN Photo Annual 2018 award

Broken Horizons

'This series is based on the idea that the current sense of disenfranchisement derives from the fundamental disconnect we have from the natural world and the social isolation that comes with it. In turn, the perception of the natural environment as something external drives our uses and abuses of environmental resources.'

FILTER Gallery in Chicago

My 'Once We Were Here' series flew from Corden|Potts gallery in San Francisco to FILTER gallery in Chicago. They will be there until the end of the month. And it looks great: big THANK YOU to the FILTER team for the wonderful job they did!

Thank you Caitlin Peterson for the great install shots!

Art Through The Lens Show

Another piece of my new series (Dis)Connected going out into the world: 'Make Believe' will be heading to the Yeser Art Center in Paducah (Kentucky) for the 'Art Through The Lens' show: https://www.theyeiser.org/gallery/

Make Believe.jpg

I am becoming jealous of my own work: it is travelling more than me!

 

About the series: 

This series is thus based on the idea that the current sense of disenfranchisement derives from the fundamental disconnect we have from the natural world and the social isolation that comes with it. In turn, the perception of the natural environment as something external drives our uses and abuses of environmental resources.

Once We Were Here

'Once We Were Here' Opening at Corden|Potts

Reception September 7, 5:30 to 7:30 pm

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Please join us on Thursday, September 7 between 5:30 and 7:30 pm to celebrate the opening of our new exhibit, Once We Were Here, the work of photographer Nicolò Sertorio.
 
The exhibit will run from September 7 through October 21.
 
Speaking about Once We Were Here, Nicolò says his intent is to show the viewer a hypothetical world where humanity's insatiable consumption has led to a landscape where humanity has disappeared and only nature remains. 
 
Presented as an archeological study on the nature of co-existence, it is Nicolò's hope that we can still assume both global and individual responsibility; that we can still change our path forward.
 
Nicolò Sertorio is an award-winning, internationally exhibited artist with over 15 years of experience in visual storytelling.
 
He works in fine art and commercial photography, mixed media, collaboration, and conceptual art. His photographs directly respond to the surrounding environment by emphasizing the aesthetics of everyday experiences. A disconcerting beauty emerges from the multiple layers of Nicolò's dramatic meaning. 
 
Nicolò currently lives and works in Oakland. He is president of the Northern California chapter of American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP).
 

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10S 646391mE 4014819mN-2 from the series Once We Were Here © Nicolò Sertorio


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phone: 415-781-0110 

We Are All Immigrants

WE ARE ALL IMMIGRANTS

(PORTRAITS OF) PEOPLE I MET LAST YEAR

Some projects take months of planning. Some projects require conscious effort and execution. And some projects happen almost before the artist even realizes that inspiration has taken hold. I did not intend for ‘The People I Met Last Year’ to become the resonating force that it is now. In fact, I did not intend for it to be anything. And yet, it  manifested itself through my lens as a social study on the complex linked matrix that is the human existence

Over the twelve months that I spent trekking along the Northern Croatian border on the Drava River to the Adriatic Sea photographing sweeping landscapes, historic castles and roads, I discovered the real purpose for my travels. I realized that it wasn’t the setting of the photographs, but rather the people who defined those settings, changed them and influenced them. So, I took the time to simply approached strangers and asked to take their portrait. These impromptu photoshoots occasionally turned into longer conversations, interactions and friendships. More often, though, these encounters came and went with the blink of my camera lens.

My original goal was to put together a strong portrait series. In the end, though, I realized that the project went much deeper than that–it revealed people as incredibly distinct, multilayered individuals who create their own stories and yet live connected by a few degrees. Moving forward, my approach to people as a subject of photography was derived from my fascination by what makes us the same. Personally, the energy I encountered in each person gave me the chance to reflect on his life and understand purpose as an artist.

Perhaps the project suggests that we all are immigrants at one point in our life. We are all outsiders. And yet, every person has dignity in his or her identity as a human. We are, indeed, connected. In the end, everything has been affected by everything else: people, objects, and ideas.