20/9/2006
Lorenza Lucchi Basili
Two venues, Vilnius and Kaunas
Structuresurface. In her instant shots Lucchi Basili fixes parts and angles, unusual perspectives, shadows and reflections, which in the prints become evocative and mysterious shapes taken from no longer recognizable architectures. Curator: Marina Sorbello.
Structuresurface
Curator: Marina Sorbello
The structure is form,
the surface becomes form
and in the form it finds its own structure.
L.L.B.
The photographic series chosen by Lorenza Lucchi Basili for the parallel exhibitions in Arka Gallery, Vilnius, and Meno Parkas, Kaunas, originate from shootings in Montreal, Vancouver, Berlin, Los Angeles, Chicago and Vilnius. The series show parts of iconic architectures, where the architectures themselves disappear: edges, colours, shapes, shadows, lines, curves. The point of departure of Lucchi Basili's work is the architecture around, in particular that of the post-modern metropolis. In her instant shots Lucchi Basili fixes parts and angles, unusual perspectives, shadows and reflections, which in the prints become evocative and mysterious shapes taken from no longer recognizable architectures. Be the subject of the photographs a building by Frank Gehry or Daniel Libeskind, or a section from a late-gothic church like the St. Bernardine in Vilnius, in Lucchi Basili's images what matters is that each portion of photographed reality contains other realities, and that the artificial, constructed world mirrors something that already exists in nature. The images reveal therefore a cosmos. It this sense, one could say Lucchi Basili is interested in the heuristic dimension of art, in art as "…a non-rational, un-scientific way to get to some knowledge"(L.L.B).
Lorenza Lucchi Basili works with photography but does not consider herself a photographer. Photography, she claims, is just a means for pursuing her artistic research. To her, trained as an architect with a peculiar interest into fractal geometry as mathematic model to understand complexity, photography is the mechanical device to filter and to investigate reality, to show its genetic code and, ultimately, the beauty in it. The way Lucchi Basili uses photography is not documentary, nor is it in any way constructed or digitally manipulated photography. Her images reveal things otherwise overlooked by the eye, back to a kind of 'magical' use of the medium, and are the result of a different way to look at the world around, an exercise virtually applicable to all the possible realm of our surroundings and lives.
Why is it architecture the main subject of Lucchi Basili's artistic production? Architecture is the constructed space we live in, it contains the shapes we inhabit and forms our environment. It is the most tangible product of our thought, of what we use to represent ourselves. Travelling in a context which is not familiar, which is full of suggestions not easy to decipher, is another important part of her artistic proceedings and adds other dimensions to her research: contingency, suggestion, coincidence. Contingency meaning here for example the particular light condition of a particular moment of the day, the weather, the clouds in the sky; suggestion and coincidence the fascination felt for a given architecture, encountered by chance during one of her urban explorations.
The two exhibitions in Vilnius and Kaunas investigate the intertwined architectural and geometric themes of structure and surface. The series selected for the shows are skilfully mounted throughout the exhibition spaces, thereby going beyond the bi-dimensionality of photography and of the frontal presentation. Installed all over the exhibition space, the photographs acquire a sculptural character and dialogue with the immediate surroundings, generating new perspectives and multiple points of view. Following Lucchi Basili's logic, the exhibition could be read as an excursus in post Euclidean geometry, where there is no straight line which is not curved, and no surface which is not a grid and therefore structure. And so on. But you do not need to be a mathematician to wonder at the beauty and the evocative power of the series, showing the world that surrounds us in a way we have never seen.
Text: Marina Sorbello
Lorenza Lucchi Basili lives and works in Padova, Italy. Among her recent exhibitions are group shows at the Contemporary Art Center at Genazzano Castle, Genazzano; Vartai, Vilnius; Raid Projects, Los Angeles; Hallwalls at SoundLab, Buffalo NY; Studio G7, Bologna; Ozone/Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Gallery of Modern Art, Bologna; Fuori Uso, Pescara; New Media Scotland, Edinburgh; Eyedrum, Atlanta GA; ACCEA, Yerevan; S. Domenico’s Cloisters, Reggio Emilia. Next year she will have solo shows at Oredaria, Rome, and at the Radford University Art Museum, Roanoke VA, USA.
Marina Sorbello is a curator, journalist and art-critic based in Berlin, Germany. She writes for publications such as "The Art Newspaper", London and "Tema Celeste", Milan. Among her recent projects: the international conference "KLARTEXT! The Status of the Political in Contemporary Art and Culture" (Berlin, 2005), and "This Land is My Land", Nurnberg and Berlin, 2006.
Supported by: Fondazione PescarAbruzzo and Pescara City Council, Italy
Venues:
Arka Gallery
Aušros Vartų G. 7 - Vilnius
Tel. (22) 22 13 19, 22 12 10
arka@artistsassociation.lt
21 September - 15 October
Meno Parkas
Rotušes a. 27 - Kaunas
Tel. (8 37) 33 71 67
LDS@kaunas.omnitel.netKaunas
22 September - 17 October