VisionQuesT 4rosso Genova Italy: Marco Craig & Francesca Galliani
Marco Craig (Italy) 1970 ANTHROPOCENE FOSSILS (images 1-3)
ANTHROPOCENE FOSSILS is a research work on iconic objects linked to the world of luxury that have been transformed into fossils through a very personal vision. A testimony to posterity that tells with great elegance, how radically humans are responsible for the changes in the climate and living conditions of our planet.
Anthropocene: the term used to define the current geological era, in which man has managed – with territorial, structural and climatic changes – to impact geological processes. When we speak of ‘fossils’, or even simply when we say the word ‘fossil’, in 87 percent of cases, the brain processes an image that refers to a shape impressed in flint. Usually a plant or an animal.
Deposits of sediment remain preserved for centuries in the layers of the earth’s crust. Unbeknownst to them, one age succeeds another. And today? Today there are other phenomena that mark time as we know it. Although less natural, these phenomena are equally impactful. Fashion is one of them..
If in a hypothetical distant future a paleontologist went looking for fossils, what would he find?
To provide a plausible answer one would have to crystallize the idea of the passage of time. Showing us contemporary fossils that will no longer be contemporary – starting from a not too distant tomorrow. Because the very idea of a ‘fossil’ is changeable in itself. What has been, coincides with what will be.
Francesca Galliani (Italy) 1962 INCROLLABILE (UNWEAVERING) (images 4-6)
After almost twenty years, these unique photographs have emerged from Francesca Galliani’s archives (photographs that Francesca printed in analogue and selenium and sepia toned herself); the unchanged tension given by the combination of faces and bodies, – only apparently unambiguous in genre – is expressed by the intertwining of seduction, tenderness, introspection, discouragement, defiance and triumph, on ta subject matter at a time where it was not easy, comfortable or in any way “open” as it is today.
In the depiction of people, as in all her work, Galliani’s portraits exude a longing for emotions and an attempt to capture what is most fleeting: the process of becoming. In this perspective, the artist and her subjects evolve together. The transitory nature of place provides a backdrop for the more psychologically probing and difficult metamorphosis of personal identity. Often gorgeous by any measure of conventional beauty, each portrait has a formal power achieved through pose, lighting, and the artist’s masterful experimentation with the photographic printing process. “But words or images that float within their portrait settings, like the meaning-laden props in a domestic scene by Vermeer, sometimes hint at the more tragic aspects of life experience: “stop misery,” “trash,” “fight back,” smash gay oppression.”*
VisionQuesT 4rosso
16123 Genova Italy
www.visionquest.it
Window Fourteen Gallery Genèva, Switserland Laurent Goumarre, Lara Micheli, Ara Ko, Crisitan Bravo
Laurent Goumarre (France) 1963 (images 7-8)
Laurent Goumarre‘s photographic career is first and foremost a literary experience – Hervé Guibert, Duane Michals, Ettore Sottsass, Sophie Calle… which he has been pursuing since 1998, his first exhibition at Galerie Alain Gutharc in Paris. For Unseen, he presents “Chambres étroites” (“Narrow Rooms”) Photography is also a story of books, a photo on a page, that’s how I saw it at first, Hervé Guibert’s novels, his articles in Le Monde, and then his albums of photographs. Guibert is a photographer of interiors, of small domestic arrangements: his office at the Villa Medici in Rome, his aunt’s Parisian apartment, his room at the Santa Caterina convent on the island of Elba, of which I knew everything: the bed, the window, the light, all of which have become black-and-white fetishes for me over the years. I went there just for that, to document the ‘narrow room’ of a writer photographer, buried a few meters away in the Rio nell Elba cemetery. I knew I wouldn’t see anything of Guibert’s, that the room had seen other passages, that I wouldn’t be doing black and white, but that it would look like it. I didn’t take my camera, just the Polaroid, in order not to control anything, neither the frame nor the light. It was the photo alone that would show what it had seen, without Guibert, and almost without me.
Lara Micheli (Switzerland) 1990 (images 9-11)
Lara Micheli studied Art History in Paris. After graduating, she started an internship at the Photography department from French auction house Artcurial while working on personal and commissioned photo projects. She continued her learning journey by attending the online program at the International Center of Photography (New-York) from 2017 to 2021. Her photography practice aims to investigate the question of Transmission, and more specifically women’s role in transmitting the family narrative. Love and desire are also a main theme in her work. She has been exhibiting internationally since 2019. The series presented at UNSEEN on linen are the fruit of a long journey to find and master a new technique that would match the feelings I was trying to express. These works are a dialogue, both by their form and subject, and a continuous back and forth, between digital and analogue, mechanical and manual, persistence and disappearance. The process is a mix of techniques, blending photography ink to a piece of linen, prepared as for a painting. The transferred pigments remain captives of the paint. The result is a delicate yet not fragile ink print, irregular and unique. No glass is needed, the viewer can completely dive into the image, going from super closeups to wider views. Evoking transmission, especially from women to women, a theme I have been questioning since the very beginning of my practice, this selection of works appears to live individually and as a whole.
Ara Ko, South Korea (images 12-14)
Ara Ko roams constantly, deeply examining the landscapes she encounters, wherever she may be, in order to fathom the depth of existence. Standing on the quiet expanse of a snowy wilderness, in a forest where the blue wind whispers, or by the waves that rush across the grieving earth, she witnesses the profound sadness that all existence must carry. And she captures and expresses them in the most beautiful way possible, without compromising the sublime aesthetics of the subject that photography conveys. The images exhibited with Window Fourteen at Unseen is part of a work called “L’Étranger” a series of self-portraits in which she depicts herself, alone, in seemingly infinite natural environments.. “I find myself unknowable, often feeling like the most unfamiliar entity in the world. To me, the concept of self seems comparable to the midday sun, appearing prominent yet increasingly enigmatic upon closer examination. The true essence of oneself remains elusive, much like an eternal stranger, reminiscent of a distant star in the universe. As I contemplate my existence, I name myself as a stranger while standing on the threshold of nature, seeking to understand the reason of my being. My artwork delves into the profound gap that exists between the current ‘I’ and the ‘I’ that longs to be Ultimately, my photographs serve as reflections of the perpetual inquiry into questions such as ‘what am I?’ and ‘what must I be? “
Cristian Bravo (Spain) 1993 (images 15-17)
Cristian Bravo (La Melancolia) Is a Barcelona based artist whose photography lives between the edge of mundanity and the impossible. Cris’s work pushes the boundaries of normality through innovative and unconventional perspectives, offering us a new vision of the world we all live in. He never used the camera as a creative tool until his early twenties and what started as a simple act of documenting his private life with the cell phone, became a form of self-expression and acceptance that lives on its own. Creating images where humanity and abstraction live together. Cristian Bravo has travelled the world creating an extensive body of work between Europe and the United States for over a decade today and continues to do so. “Some images only become interesting after being photographed, because at the time of being taken, the objects and people being photographed are not that interesting themselves, there was nothing extraordinary going on, but you must give it a chance” The following photographs stand to that thought. To give life a chance to be. Coming from a street culture background where skateboarding plays a big role, Cris has worked with international brands
Window Fourteen Gallery
1207 Genève, Suisse
www.windowfourteen.com
UNSEEN 2024: UNBOUND
Unbound is an independent foundation, dedicated to exploring the expanding outer limits of the photographic universe on a monumental scale, and Unseen’s most ambitious project to date.
Each year about 10 large scale, boundary defying projects where photography crosses over into digital art, installations, performance art, sculpture, landscaper art, virtual reality and video art, are selected and staged in a sensory exhibition in the 700 m2 industrial heritage Transformatorhuis hall at the fair, and in the surrounding park.
This year the platform was handed to:
- Adam Magyar TOBE Gallery (Budapest)
- Atong Atem MARS Gallery (Melbourne)
- Jackie Mulder Janknegt Gallery (Laren)
- Joost Vandebrug Bildhalle Gallery (Amsterdam)
- Lynne Leegte Janknegt (Laren NH)
- Maciej Urbanek Urbanek (London)
- Quintus Glerum Josilda da Conceição (Amsterdam)
We have the pleasure to present to you a few of the projects:
JOOST VANDEBRUG VIDEO INSTALLATION “MOMENT/TIME” AT UNBOUND 2024 – BILDHALLE (image 18)
Joost Vandebrug’s video installation “Moment/Time” examines the fluidity of time and the transient nature of existence. Inspired by Heraclitus’ concept that ‘you can never step in the same river twice’, the work features eight vertically positioned TV screens, each displaying a unique seascape. Despite their individuality, the screens are aligned to create a continuous horizon line that stretches across the installation, suggesting the subtle continuity that connects moments in time.
This arrangement underscores the themes of impermanence and transformation in both nature and human experience. By capturing the sea’s infinite variability, the installation mirrors the multifaceted nature of recollection and memory – how moments can be both faithful and altered over time. Vandebrug’s work intertwines these transient scenes into a unified flow, illustrating the ceaseless movement and interconnectedness of change.
Each of the 8 screens features a unique mono audio fragment with distinct pitch, tempo, and sound. When played together, these fragments create a spatial, infinite, aleatoric composition – constantly evolving yet consistently similar (score by Jeroen de Pessemier).
Bildhalle Amsterdam
1071 HR Amsterdam
www.bildhalle.ch/
Bildhalle Zurich
8004 Zurich & 8003 Zurich (2 sites)
www.bildhalle.ch/
TOBE Gallery Budapest: Adam MAGYAR (image 19)
Magyar is also at the stand of TOBE on the UNSEEN fair – have a look over there for more information
MATTER
No one can truly understand time. As an artist, I delve into our relationship with past, future, and present moments, contemplating how we utilize and sometimes squander time. I’ve always been fascinated by the subjective experience of time—pondering the weight and beauty of memories, the apprehension of looming uncertainty, the emptiness felt in solitude, and reflections on the final dusk when everything will cease. Most of all, I admire those instances when time appears to stand still, and a sense of unity permeates existence.
Navigating through the rigid forest of causes and consequences presents a beautiful challenge in finding an analogue flow. Through my video and photographic series, MATTER, I revisit urban locales, capturing them from identical perspectives. In the finished works, days and moments merge, revealing the passage of time and the ephemeral nature of our memories, as well as our insignificance in the grand scheme. Time becomes tangible, a visible journey where boundaries dissolve and permanence fades away.
Amidst this visual dissolution, only the traffic lights remain, steadfast in their own clearly legible world.
TOBE Gallery
1088 Budapest
www.tobegallery.hu
Maciej Urbanek: URBANEK Gallery (images 20-21)
The work entitled SUN.FLOWER is based on photographs of installations with garbage bags. Here Urbanek creates a physical composition, which is then photographed & printed to a large scale.
Naturally to create beauty with discarded objects or objects that are considered not worth looking at, is not new in the art world. The scale and the sheer beauty of the ultimate result makes this work exceptional & distinctive.
URBANEK
SE21 8QR London
https://urbanekgallery.co.uk/
Quintus Glerum: Stuck in Infinity (Josilda da Conceição ) (images 22-23)
Through the course of his life media artist Quintus Glerum has tried to get a better understanding of himself by mirroring his image to that of machines. While our tools are created for a specific purpose, we do not have the same luxury. Why do I act the way I do? What does it mean to be human and why am I bothering myself with these questions? Getting strangled in endless streams of reoccurring questions formed around human behavior caused him to create hypothetical situations that both break down and reflect on his own sense of reality. He has come to perceive this as an act of escapism. This does not come as a surprise, due to his background in animated film. This field in particular is often used by people that feel an urge to escape reality.
This new series reflects on the urge of escapism by portraying life as a simulation. Glerum uses the protagonist ‘Kiki’ as an avatar of himself who acts as a bridge between mundane reality and videogame fantasy. In these new works, the character is portrayed as if being stuck within the boundaries of the very screen that make the simulation possible. To amplify the ‘fakeness’ of his world, the screens are made transparent to make the inside of the screen an intricate part of the composition. While the screen represents a doorway for endless virtual possibilities, it becomes tactile again by the visual of character stuck within its own physical boundaries.
Quintus Glerum
The Netherlands
www.quintusglerum.com
UNSEEN 2024 : Book Fair (image 24)
Every year, next to UNSEEN, there is a very tempting place crammed with books – the book fair… More than 70 stallholders come there to offer you their new, old, rare, precarious books.
At the end of the day, you see visitors slowly stepping towards the exit laden with their latest acquisitions. Last year I had a conversation with one of them – delighted by his finds, where he once again emphasised the rarity, but at the same time scratching his head where he was going to store his treasures – hadn’t he already added a room to his library, and wasn’t it full again…
Whether you belong to this group, or to those who really need to be tempted first to then buy that ONE book, or if you only go to the book fair to observe the stands, the stallholders and the visitors – a part of UNSEEN where you really can’t go around…
Of course, we could fill another eight contributions with everything on offer: you can go to small publishers such as Albumen with a small but carefully chosen range, to more well-known publishers such as Hannibal or Hopper & Fuchs. Here is a brief overview of some of the book signings
Hannibal (image 25)
Hannibal is building itself a solid and indubitable reputation as a publisher of exposition catalogues on the international art market, but in addition, the photo book continues to play an important role. We are already looking forward to Jeroen Hofman’s signing sessions with his book Zeeland and Stephan Vanfleteren’s with his latest publication Atelier.
- Jeroen Hofman – Zeeland Signing: Friday 20/9 17h + Sunday 22/9 14h
- Sanja Marusic – The Endless Coloured Ways Signing: Saturday 21/9 15h
- Stephan Vanfleteren – Atelier Signing: Saturday 21/9 16h
- Eddo Hartman – The Sacrifice Zone Signing: Saturday 21/9 17h
- Arpaïs Dubois & Michael Wolf: Hong Kong Whispers Signing by Arpaïs Dubois: Sunday 22/9 15h
Hopper + Fuchs (image 26-28)
At Hopper + Fuchs, a wide range of curated art books. This relative newcomer to the art market has managed to command respect in a short period of time with beautiful art books created in dialogue with the artist, tailored to his/her needs. Avid for the latest book by Gasparotto, definitely also Lefere and definitely check out Waterschoot’s publication as well.
- Peter Waterschoot – Summer Blue FRIDAY 20.09, 1.00 pm – 4.00 pm
- Lieven Lefere – ( Sehr Langsam ) FRIDAY 20 September, 2.00 pm – 5.00 pm
- Clémentine Balcaen – THANK YOU BYE SATURDAY 21 September, 13:00 – 16:00
- Lara Gasparotto – Refuge SATURDAY 21.09, 14:00 – 17:00
- Yolanda Y. Liou – Thank You For Playing With Me SATURDAY 21.09, 16:00 – 19:00
- Gert Motmans – An Ocean Between Waves SUNDAY, 14:00-16:00
Jap Sam Books image 29-30
- Michiel Kluiters (solo exhibition at UNSEEN at MPV Gallery Oisterwijk) will be signing his book Doorways on Friday at 18:00.
