Vittoria Gerardi — Latenza — Bigaignon Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 14 → April 20, 2024

After the remarkable successes of “Confine” in 2017, and “Pompeii” in 2019, we are particularly delighted to present the highly anticipated exhibition “Latenza,” the third solo exhibition by Italian artist Vittoria Gerardi at the gallery. This minimalist exhibition, which places light at the core of her work and pushes the boundaries of the photographic medium, is a remarkable hymn to life.

With Latenza, the Italian artist delves into the very nature of photography, the light, and the time that constitutes it. Through a process called Alethegraphy, an experimental technique of partial development of the print, Vittoria Gerardi seeks to understand the language of photography, its submerged structure, its hidden face. In doing so, she explores the concept of the latent image that lies within each print even before it is revealed, and seeks to uncover the boundary that separates the visible from the invisible. The latent image is symbolized here by plant fragments, sometimes used as a negative, sometimes as a substrate for the image. By transforming light into a chemical reaction, photography becomes photosynthesis, just as happens in the plant world.

By associating plants with the concept of the latent image, Vittoria Gerardi explores our relationship with life and chooses not to fix her prints. Thus, because they remain sensitive to light, the prints, preserved in magnificent hermetically sealed frame boxes, will continue to change color progressively, adapting to the elements before settling naturally into their “final” composition, if only we allow ourselves to open the box! As critic Anna Ghadar explains: “In this way, Vittoria Gerardi involves viewers in the development process and, in so doing, strikes a balance between her well-honed technical skills and her poetic submission to the inherent unpredictability of time”. Just as the human brain distills information about its environment to develop an image of itself and the world around it, Vittoria Gerardi’s photographic paper literally develops as it is exposed. It’s as if the work itself is maturing, mimicking a process of growth, expressing both origin and becoming.

The boxes in which the prints are “enclosed” are an integral part of the work. They are decorated with enamelled copper plates whose color varies from one side to the other. On the outside, the enamel is a monochromatic glass that follows the sequence of Newton’s sphere: “Color is how we perceive light”, explains the artist, “so it’s how I’ve structured and ordered the sequence on the outside (white, yellow, orange, red, gray, green, blue, indigo, violet and black). Inside, we encounter a dimension of light that goes beyond visual perception”, coming from darkness and movement: the former is formed by dendritic roots inside the enamel plates resulting from a reaction between copper and glass; the latter is obtained by the photographic sequence that evolves over time.

This unique and astonishing series of prints is complemented by bronze sculptures that the artist calls Gliommeri. In ‘The Metamorphosis of Plants’, Goethe perceives an essential point of life: a continuous metamorphosis that goes hand in hand with profound unity and entanglement. When one cause creates an effect, it simultaneously induces another, gradually forming the complex network in which we operate. These small bronze sculptures, which take the form of intertwined filaments, echo the idea of an entangled world, a world represented by a line whose beginning and end merge, symbolizing eternity.

“For so many centuries, the question of the mystery of creation has been evoked as that which must be revealed! Vittoria Gerardi, following in the footsteps of rare poets and artists, approaches creation as the fulfillment of a mystery, in the Dionysian sense of the term. She acts so that something can be revealed rather than connected to the forces that constitute it”, concludes the French art critic Jean- Louis Poitevin.