Lightroom. In these photographs the subject is scaled-down in the frame, and the image is doubled in an attempt to pursue dialogue with the alter ego or is left to embrace the other distinct from the self. Curated by Raffaella Guidobono.
Curated by Raffaella Guidobono
How often do we fail to take notice of our own nature?
These photographs secretly venerate leisure, seen as estranging oneself from the noisy world. The subject is scaled-down in the frame, and the image is doubled in an attempt to pursue ‘dialogue’ with the alter ego or is left to embrace the other distinct from the self. Roberto de Paolis invites us to reflect on the disappearance of quiet interlude and introspection, on the secret subjectivity and the singular objectivity of things, and how they appear to us, on the need to stop and look at people around us and not less those rare moments when we are genuinely ourselves.
It is startling to see parallel planes and ‘dialogues’ coexisting in their search for truth, on the whole the tangible result could seem fleeting in the artist’s work, if at the same time we did not perceive rigorous attention to form.
Purposely ethereal, Alba C. Rohrwacher is expression of a conscious and restrained fragility in the self-portraits and in the series that concentrate on the sinuous, slender figure of the actress, almost as if to underline the precariousness of human nature, the possibility that we could dematerialize at any moment.
The sensation of progressive movement gives rise to motion and fixity in a single frame, giving us the impression of a video frame prior to realization. The artist has chosen the entrance hall to Casa Zerilli Marimò for his Lightroom where in a sort of film set, once again he utilises his method of covering pre-existing windows with sheets of plexiglass lit up from the rooms behind, giving his installations that translucent movie-screen quality. Contemporaneously, Roberto’s installations are on show at the street level of The Chelsea Esso Gallery, evoking his impressive projects that take over the facades of entire buildings.
Roberto de Paolis was born in 1980 and has exhibited in Rome, Berlin and New York. His installations have been seen on the façade of historical buildings in conjunction with public events, such as White Night in Rome, 2007, Rome Film Festival, 2007 and Bologna Art First, 2008.
Opening 27th February, 2008.
Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo'
24 West 12th Street - New York