Il Paese dell'Utopia

26 August - 30 October, 2016

GÜNTER GRASS GDAŃSK GALLERY, Gdańsk

Curated by Marta Wróblewska

Text by Matteo Gardonio Ducrocq

Photographic and installation project for the “Nie-miejsca” exhibition

Detail:

Ugo Carmeni, Il Paese dell'Utopia, 2016

Photographic diptych shot in Florence, 2015 and edited in Venice, 2016

Analog photographs shot and edited in Venice, 2016

Edition of 5 + 2AP

Unique piece - analog photographs

Il Paese dell'Utopia - photographic diptych, fine art cotton paper, aluminium comp. panels - 150 x 100 cm / each - edition of 5

Radiografie - 5 analog photographs printed in negative and positive and shown inside old X-ray cassettes

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at.

Oscar Wilde

A Land made of perceptions, temporal and spatial suspensions, centrifugal and centripetal forces, implosions and explosions. A Land of surfaces that are gently touched by light and by objects dropped into a reality with no reference points, awash in suspense-filled silence.

It is all about overturning plans and about forcing us to turn our heads and necks around and to reflect on our own perceptions.

Carmeni seems to own a treasure map whose places he was the first to discover and see, while also enjoying interpreting them for us. As a consequence, we face a disturbing picture as if it were a game where we must look for some kind of clue. The prototypical expressions of treasure hunt games refer to “getting warmer” or “colder”. But where are we playing? Carmeni also plays with a binomial, but one that is based on two extremely misleading words: “reality” and “dream”.

Matteo Gardonio Ducrocq