This is the most original book presentation of the week.
It is by Federico Pacini for his book Mostra, published by 89books.
Through the opacity of time
“Mostra” is not just the title of the book, but also a knowledge tool.
“Mostra” in English / to show /, implies minimal gestures: to suspend judgment, to renounce to the explanation, to rely on the raising of forms that cannot be fully named.
The visible is not given—it surfaces; and while surfacing, it always keeps a degree of opacity.
The word “mostra” derives from the Latin word “monstrare”, and shares its root with “mostro” / monster /, which disrupts order and demands attention not to be understood, but to exist in its discontinuity.
In this sense, photography is not a clarification tool, but an interruption tool.
Photography halts the gaze at the very point where reality ceases to align with its appearance.
No assertive will guides these images. They do not organize, they do not synthesize.
They unfold in time with the same discretion as minor things, which do not seek centrality, but endurance in time. Their voice relies on the interval and on the unfinished.
Each image is a split and an intermittence. What appears is often what is unseen elsewhere: the leftover, the residue, the marginal. In this marginality a tension arises not toward a meaning, but toward a threshold that is never fully crossed. The temporal dimension is neither linear nor conclusive: time in these images is suspended, dilated.
Time does not progress but is distributed and fragmented across details, edges, and unspoken spaces.
It is like a parallel world, but not an elsewhere. It is a reality closer to our own, distinguished not by its content but by its perception mode.
A world that does not give itself away, but withholds: it resists the understanding.
Federico Pacini (English Translation: Marta Basagni)
Federico Pacini : Mostra
Published by 89books (2025)
Text: Federico Pacini
Format: 280X210 mm.
204 pages, 107 pictures, softcover
Design: 89books
ISBN: 979-12-80423-78-8
https://www.89books.com/
