A field guide in parts, an attempt at shorthand analysis.
Places, not much else needs to be said when so much has already been said.
The strong presence of Guido Guidi, as if you were to take his large-format images of Cesena and use a 35mm camera to catch some of his shadow work.
A mix of formats: not only is there 35mm, but there is also a square 120 format in the book, which shows the artist’s comparative framing ability in both formats. Of course, this may have been from cropping, but I do not sense it.
A game of triangles and shadows, jagged keep of absences and presences, pervades the work. Sometimes all you need is a shadow to convince the frame to follow compositions that speak photographically, without the encumbrance of language. You can feel a shadow, revel in its cookie-cutter negative space, almost like a celluloid negative itself, challenging the notion of the double.
On the use of doubling. One scene, one position, shot over time, momentum builds, one forensically passes over the flattening of light through the passage of time. The differences are in the light itself, not the subject. This has been effectively used to explain the rational possibility that there are unlimited ways of understanding our time stretched out in our lives, while also courting the very insignificant presence that we inhabit as we toil, observe, and seek some understanding of the bigger questions of purposefulness, our utility to the geography and era we lumber and (sadly) slumber through. This doubling is an efficient mechanism for explaining photography’s position to time, light, and essence.
Contact posture. Throughout, there are uses of grids, both in small intervals and which build into almost achieving a full contact sheet, an analog resistance and medium-specific dialog from the artist to remind us of the alchemical nature of light and silver, to remind us of its haptic potential in an age when all is pixel. It makes, though not as a fundamental decree, the nature of engagement, for those trapped on the inside, reciprocity of nitrate and materiality. The black lines, scanned to show the frames’ void, are included and become part of the composition, creating an interesting game of lines and continuation. The desire to put full black frames around scanned negatives is always so very appealing, a question of structural suggestion and integrity, again, material.
On the X in photography, a recurring theme featured in works by John Gossage (Berlin), Joachim Schmidt (The Spot), Thomas Barrow (Cancellations), and, more recently, Odette England’s discussion on the matter. It is a historical annotation within and on top of frames that makes it intriguing for what it does and for what it purports to undo through its intersections. Within these places, it occurs several times, though softly, without the brash need to obfuscate entirely.
What I take away is a soft illuminating study of places, of shadows, and a hazy soft type of existential memorabilia in which my feet are blistered by sand, the buzz of cicadas land noisily in my ears, and the sun blinds me with a resistance to my being, but ultimately accepts there is work to be done that surpasses its very dominant nature toward something sublime, uplifting and tidal, an experience caused by its opposite, the lunar. There is a playfulness with the formats and sequence of the book, and I am unable and unwilling to leave the long reach of Master Guidi.
Where Buonomo succeeds is not simply looking like one of the master’s many imitators, but standing in his own orbit, looking for a way to expand and not contract that universe of Italian photography, for which I am exceedingly grateful, and there are simply too many imitators. Luoghi is within its own territory, within its own set of investigations, and nobody owns the shadow or sun, or the use of two frames, though others have tried to suggest as much and failed. What is developing here is a strong vision that I believe can be expanded on into something even more vital as time marches on. Rebar will fade to even more stone, telephone poles will opt out, and gardens will grow thicker, if anything is to continue to grow at all.
I highly recommend this book. It is a very strong offering for a young artist finding their voice within a strong genre of photography that we all painfully respect. I hope he continues with the framing, the shadow work, and continues to homage others, while not letting them in too close. Respectful distance is still respectful. Great stuff and a great addition to the Kult Books output, designed with clarity, light experimentation, and a great cover.
Nicola Buonomo
Luoghi
Kult Books