GIANNI GALASSI PhotoGraphia

GEOMETRY AT PLAY

Alexandr Deineka, "The Skiers", 1926
Despite the obviousness of this painting, I don't see a group of seven people skiing.
What I see is the strict geometrical organization of parallel and diagonal lines. 

For those who live in Rome or happen to be in Rome until the 1st of May, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni showcases an exhibition not to be missed: ALEXANDR DEINEKA, the Soviet Master of Modernity. I confess my ignorance: I hadn't even heard about him until now, but seeing his paintings today has been a marking experience to me.
Born in Kursk, Russia, in 1899, Deineka crossed the Russian/Soviet history until his death in 1969. Since the beginning of his career he shows a sublime ability in setting up the space within the canvas, based on a strict and simple geometrical organization. No matter the situations he depicts, Deineka strikes the viewer with the power of composition and the tension of the lines of force connecting all elements to each other. Although his paintings, like Cartier Bresson's photographs, are loaded with a clear and true narration, whose characters are pushed and pulled around the canvas by the composition's strenght, geometry is their real subject. Just as in Cartier Bresson's photographs.
For photographers there is a lot to learn from Deineka's work. It's not what we see through the viewfinder of our cameras: it's all about the way we look at it, the way we analyze it, the way we compose it before releasing the shutter and, consequently, the way we make viewers see at it in our photographs.
Deineka also demonstrates that geometry and chromatism (or gray value) are strictly connected. The way we perceive the size, proportion and relationship between, say, two rectangles inevitably depends on their color. Changing or simply switching colors will deeply subvert the overall result.
I think every photographer should know the work of this Russian master, whose greatness can be compared to Edward Hopper's. A wide selection of Deineka's paintings can be seen here. Enjoy.

PRECISIONISM

I like to insist about all the learning the interaction with people in the Internet involves. One year ago this site was featured by Mike Johnston's The Online Photographer blog. In a comment to that post, a reader called Jeff suggested I should see the work of Ralston Crawford. I'm grateful to Jeff, as I had never heard about Crawford before (another thing one can learn day after day is the vastness of his own ignorance).

Ralston Crawford - Third Avenue Elevated, No. 1

Born in Canada in 1906 but grown up in Buffalo NY, Crawford was an American painter and lithographer. His graphic representation of the urban and industrial landscape led him to join Precisionism, an artistic movement that sprang in the United States in the early 1920s and was deeply influenced by Cubism and Futurism. Among Precisionists were painters like Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe as well as photographers like Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand.

No need to say that I like Crawford's art, since I recognize in it the same subjects and the same light-and-shadow game that can be found in my work. Briefly, I feel we share something. I only regret having known Ralston Crawford so late: if I did earlier, I probably would have become aware of what I was doing long before. Unsurprisingly, he was also a photographer, but I'm sure he will be mostly remembered for his unmistakable paintings. By the way, they can be seen here, here and here. Enjoy.

FORTYTHOUSAND

Today this blog totalled 40.000 pageviews in nine months. I'm deeply grateful to everybody having taken part to the success of PhotoGraphia. Moreover Google Analytics tells me that most of my viewers/readers are faithful friends of my site since their first visit, which encourages me to stay on this track. Thanks a lot to all of you.

I'm currently in the process of setting up my exhibition in Venice. It's an exciting job, where what I planned to do is continuously challenged by what I actually can do and what realistically can be done; well, I'm so happy with the results. My previous show's experience helped me a lot, as well as my wife Daniela's invaluable collaboration (without her ideas this exhibition wouldn't even exist), the curator Laura Ginapri, who is also in charge of the local organization, Giancarlo Rosini and Walter Ferretti from Rosini Art, who skillfully crafted the mounting, and all the kind people from the Giorgio Cini Foundation which is hosting the event.

Days like these deserve to be remembered. I'm enjoying this experience and learning a lot.

NOT AN OFF-TOPIC (BOUNDARIES 9)

As many of us, I get invitation emails or cards to art exhibitions almost every day. I don't like the glitterati, so I usually avoid the opening nights and prefere to pay a visit to some of those shows on weekdays. Most of the times it's photography shows. Which, most of the times, are unworthy and, above all, shamefully mounted. Especially in Rome, I must say. Funny thing, considering the lucky trend photography is having all over the world in the last years. Perhaps this can be explained by the fact that gallery owners are generally painting buyers (so to speak) and sellers, and when they exhibit photography they do it as a makeshift. Good painting is expensive, whereas photographs aren't. But those people too often lack a real photo culture. It's a lesser art, it's cheaper, perhaps people will buy it, and that's all. They don't even know the photographic medias and printing techniques, which explains the fanciful captions we often read in most photo venues.
In a gallery I visited today photographs and photographers were randomly put together, the prints were obviously recycled from too many previuos exhibitions (scratches and blemishes everywhere) and matted or mounted in the most diverse styles, whereas the walls were dotted with blots and fillings. I quickly got out, but only to stop before the next gallery, where a huge, wonderful monochrome image could be seen through the window. From the distance it looked like a photograph. But it wasn't, as I found out after I got inside.
Born in Rome in 1956, the Italian painter Marco Tirelli has a lot to do with photography and a lot to teach to all of us. Pushing the boundaries of his art he surely verges on what we usually see through the camera's eye. This is why I decided to include this post in the "Boundaries" series, even though Tirelli is not a photographer. The spare essentiality of his works, were bare architectural elements or platonic solids are built through a masterly brushwork, are among the best examples of the less-is-more mantra I have ever seen. A great lesson. Tirelli's works can be seen here. The above picture, as usual, is mine. Enjoy.

FACTORIES (DEBTS 4)

Factories are one of my favourite subjects. Have always been. They bear an ethic value, as they symbolize work, creativity, and the power of man to transform raw materials into manufactured artifacts. And an aesthetic value, as their shape is curved out of function instead of style. Photography started getting familiar with the industrial landscape since Charles Sheeler, the Philadelphia-born painter and photographer who co-founded the American Modernism. His works can be seen here.
Born in 1885, two years after Sheeler, the Italian painter Mario Sironi is the poet of the then newborn industrial landscape of his country. When I was a child the outskirts of Milan, my native city, still looked like Sironi depicted them in the Twenties. Realizing that I shared the same feelings as a renowned artist was a marking experience for me. Sironi's works can be seen here. Enjoy.

HOPPER (DEBTS 3)

As I already stated in previous posts, I owe some painters more than most photographers. Among those painters there is one most photographers owe a lot. And owing a lot to photography himself. Edward Hopper's (Nyack, NY, 1882 - New York City, 1967) canvas is a silent theater where bright sunlight, thick shadows, brick walls and thoughtful human figures are the performers. Some of his works are considered among the most important icons of the 20th Century Western culture. And not only under a visual point of view.
Hopper' artistic life is the subject of an interesting exhibition currently open in Rome. We learn that he found his deepest inspiration only in his fourty, after a long and inconsistent pursuit. Just the opposite of the precocious-prodigy-genius romantic cliché. Which is a breath of fresh air in a world where young photographers start their careers knowing that some two hundred billion pictures are shot every year in our planet. It takes time to find one's way. But it's worth a try. Even Edward Hopper didn't know he was bound to become Edward Hopper in the beginning.

CONSTRUCTIVISM (DEBTS 2)

I already confessed how much I owe to French (but Hungarian born) photographer Lucien Hervé. Another artist I am indebted to is Russian El Lissitzky, who influenced the Bauhaus and Constructivist movements. His works can be seen here.