On 1 September 2012, Umberto Morera presents the contemporary photographs of Carlo Rocchi Bilancini in a show entitled Fish Out of Water, curated by Živa Kraus, and organised in collaboration with the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. The opening will take place in the exhibition space “La Piscina” on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore at 6 p.m.
Rocchi Bilancini’s images represent just what they are: portraits of people dressed and somehow determined to immerse themselves in unrecognisable swimming pools, where water is the common element, but also that which inspires them to manifest diverse personalities.
He takes the representative route, which nevertheless transcends reality, and enters into pure Surrealism, where the oneiric component becomes the means for escaping the constraints of conscious rationality and social convention. It matters little where the observer’s psyche is led when one realises that fantasies and dreams are but cruel reflections of reality: consider the surreal films of Luis Buñuel (Un chien andalou, 1928; L’âge d’or, 1930).
Today, Rocchi Bilancini’s images, the culmination of four years’ work and the fruit of his cinematographic experience, are presented in a surreal context: images of swimming pools that are, as usual, full of water, yet nevertheless rendered temporarily inadequate because they hold clothed bodies; they are however shown in a pool which is curiously empty, yet just right for presenting the photos.
The whole, on an island in the Venetian lagoon, in a city where the term “Piscina” is a toponomastic reference, water is constantly visible and audible and the soaking of a dressed figure is a frequent and accepted sight during the acqua alta.
Carlo Rocchi Bilancini was born in Todi in 1973 to an old family of glassmakers. A photographer with a unique artistic vision, he has been much influenced in his work by collaboration with the film director Pupi Avati and the photographer Enrico Sarsini. After graduating in Economics, he attended the Fondazione Forma per la Fotografia. Rocchi Bilancini’s photographs, evocative and unsettling, reveal his profound interest in essential forms. He sees through structural, natural and man-made exteriors in order to reach the soul of his subjects, whether human figures or inanimate objects.
Fish Out of Water will display selected images from Rocchi Bilancini’s eponymous book (Pesci fuor d’acqua), published by SKIRA in 2011 with texts by Federico Sardella, Antonia Mulas, Malcolm Bull and Brian O’Doherty.
Events Schedule and Credits
Promotion: Umberto Morera
Organisation: in collaboration with Fondazione Giorgio Cini
Pesci Fuor d’Acqua/Fish Out of Water by Carlo Rocchi Bilancini
Živa Kraus
28-30 August 2012
1 September 6 p.m.
10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily
Exhibition Space “La Piscina”, Fondazione Giorgio Cini
Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice
Tickets: Free Entry
