PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
July 8, 2022
AN ARRHYTHMIC SUCCESSION OF INTERRUPTED PAUSES
Photography and words by Lorenzo Vitali
Interview by Melanie Meggs
Matching silence with rationality, color with too long shadows, contradicting the laws of perspective by going beyond reality.
Waking up in a remote village in the middle of a flat plain.
Asking oneself if in that place people's lives flow as elsewhere on earth or if here time follows a measure unknown to us: a dilated measure, irregularly divided into unequal fractions that never repeat themselves. An arrhythmic succession of interrupted pauses.
Walking along streets that indicate temporary paths waiting for non-existent goals, changing and deceptive lights in search of something that has been in us for an ancient time.
Classic shapes are transformed into masses of calm colors, which stretch, low and immovable, along a false horizon that dies moment by moment.
“The Rationalist Architecture movement originated in various international contexts (Bauhaus, Le Corbusier), also developed in Italy. The town of Tresigallo is a particular realization of this and it has constituted for me an open-air set in which to express a personal interpretation of the concepts, which were the basis of the artistic movements of that period.”
IN CONVERSATION WITH LORENZO VITALI
THE PICTORIAL LIST: Lorenzo please introduce your project AN ARRHYTHMIC SUCCESSION OF INTERRUPTED PAUSES to us. How and why did this first manifest for you? What is the full story behind the project? What was the inspiration?
LORENZO VITALI: For some time I have been interested not only in photography, but, in general, in all the visual arts, in particular in painting. Architecture attracts me too a lot and it is a genre that is often present in my photography. In Giorgio De Chirico's metaphysical painting, various elements that are highly stimulating for me are combined, in which the overcoming of reality takes place in contexts where architecture is very present. In particular, the Rationalist Architecture movement, which, in the 1920s and 1930s, originated in various international contexts (Bauhaus, Le Corbusier), also developed in Italy. There are therefore several examples of this artistic movement. The town of Tresigallo (Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna) is a particular realization of this and it has constituted for me an open-air set in which to express a personal interpretation of the concepts, which were the basis of the artistic movements of that period.
TPL: Talk to us about your method of working and experimentation before the final image. Did you know exactly what you wanted from the beginning? How long did each image take to create?
LV: I was very clear before I started photographing what kind of images I wanted to collect. Otherwise it would have been impossible to realise this work in which I knew I had to work a lot even in post-production. I needed “clean” images in order to then proceed to a further highlighting of the main elements, subtracting secondary elements. Processing times have been quite variable, but it has always taken many hours and sometimes a few days for each image.
TPL: How does your project "An arrhythmic succession of interrupted pauses" differ from your previous work? Is this type of visual storytelling something you would like to pursue again in future projects? What do you think is your next chapter in your exploration with future projects.
LV: Architecture is not the only photographic genre in which I have created works of a certain commitment. Lately, for example, I have dealt in depth with the beauty of the female body, intended as a memory, and my work on this subject, which has had a good success, has recently been published also on The Pictorial List. However, I have never neglected to deal with architectural photography and this work is in my intentions a starting point for a new trend precisely in the field of architectural photography.
TPL: Finally, what do you want people to take away from this project? What do you want them to be asking themselves?
LV: I hope that this work will induce in the observer a reflection on the themes of metaphysics in people who have a propensity to seek the overcoming of reality in art and that it can at the same time be interesting for those with a historical interest in the evolution of modern architecture. The short text that accompanies it is an expression of what "walking" among these images evoked in me.
Lorenzo Vitali is a Milanese doctor and poet of photography. Creative and experimental, always attentive to new artistic proposals in his environment, Lorenzo develops the aesthetic sense of his works by combining classic elements and innovation. He pays particular attention to shapes and materiality. He frames his work by him in a conceptual discourse with a marked tendency towards formal research.
Lorenzo has had numerous exhibitions and publications in Italian and foreign trade magazines, as well as collaborations with online magazines. In the editorial field, he has published several photographic books both in the field of reportage and on specific topic.
