For the first time, photographs of Graziano Arici’s archaeological excavations in the Venetian Lagoon are being presented to the public in an exhibition. They were published by the Consorzio Venezia Nuova in 2000, a work that is unfortunately out of print. For several decades, he systematically documented archaeological excavations in the lagoon and in Venice itself, on dry land, but mostly at the surface of the water.
Excerpt from the introduction by Franco Miracco
Water has no memory; water does not know whether the city it bathes is called Venice or Rome. Memory, on the contrary, enriches the mud, grows in the filthy shallows, becomes trapped in the sediment, disperses but does not disappear in the silt of marshes and lagoons. Memory emerges from the shallows or encumbers us once again with submerged ruins, from the jumble of stones, debris, shells, and other debris over which the tide rises, for memory begins again underwater, and we discover the origin where history broke, where things sank. (…)
The unknown Sirens of the lagoons are ferocious deities who hate established paths, obvious traces, names, centuries, empires, cities. The trophy of their hunting prowess is deposited in skulls, in the bones of deer, in the barbarity of things dragged underwater. It is there that the belly of the lagoon grows, and in this belly there is a mixture in which, until now, it seems impossible to discover the “monument,” to find the seductive masterpiece. To grasp the beauty of a magnificence in marble or bronze. It’s as if everything had been ravaged by the Sirens of the lagoons, invisible guardians of this womb into which they themselves continually throw carcasses and wrecks of all kinds, things shattered by their jaws. (…)
After studying sociology, Graziano Arici turned to photography, specializing in theater, portraiture, and culture. He was for a long time the official photographer of La Fenice, the Palazzo Grassi, the world of art and culture in Venice and elsewhere, from Berlin to the Cathar heresy, the Venetian ghetto, and the former Yugoslavia. For several decades, he systematically documented archaeological research in the lagoon and the city of Venice, also highlighting the damage caused by overexploitation of tourism. He also photographed the excavations that unearthed the only galley found at the site of San Marco in Boccalama.
