Our collaborator Thierry Maindrault can be a photographer and exhibition curator.
Till January 21, 2024, he presents a retrospective of Silvano Ruffini within the distinctive web site of Forte di Bard within the Aosta Valley, a spectacular citadel which has turn into one of many fundamental facilities for pictures in Italy.
Right here is his textual content and his selection of pictures.
I’m invite you to an exhibition within the distinctive web site of Forte di Bard within the Aosta Valley, an autonomous area within the Italian Alps. I’m curating it on the request of my pal, proficient artistic photographer, Silvano Ruffini. I’ll allow you to see some his works from his collections. I strongly encourage you to go to this spectacular citadel, which has turn into one of many fundamental facilities for pictures in Italy.
Exhibition
This exhibition is the primary to deliver collectively, in the identical place, completely different collections by Silvano Ruffini. A few of these collections have already been the topic of a number of shows to the general public by means of festivals, group exhibitions or private/ shows. A few of these collections are solely partialy introduced right here, comparable to “Natalino”, “Valle dell’Omo” and “la mia galleria di ritratti”. The 2 different units chosen, “Colour of Air” and “American Dream” are an ‘unique premiere’ for the Forte di Bard.
The selection of those 5 collections, amongst all of the others, was dictated by the concept of letting you uncover completely different phases on this photographic journey. It’s a type of mini-retrospective. The creator reveals this heterogeneity of recognizable and important expertise amongst true artistic photographers. Thus, this route presents you some touches of Silvano’s huge palette, between shade and black and white, between countryside and metropolis, between stillness and motion.
Biography
Silvano Ruffini is a really particular character on this planet of pictures. He’s very eager on soccer, pictures, and travelling. Logically, this hyperactive man, together with his by no means ending curiosity, has been searching for since he was younger to immortalize all of his discoveries. His very busy skilled actions, his different passions and his lack of information of “creative” circles have lengthy prevented him from showcasing his photographic creations. It was solely because the new millennium that his works had been seen, after which highlighted in worldwide exhibitions and in numerous publications. Naturally very reserved and in everlasting doubt concerning the improvement of his work, he has joined the worldwide collective of creators, Optim’Artwork. He’ll stay the related witness who will repair the invisible in a topic that can stay banal for the eyes of the bulk affected by blindness.
Silvano is likely one of the photographers of oblivion and of the forgotten; he offers us the chance to see as soon as once more what was in entrance of us, earlier than its definitive disappearance. He’ll resurrect our creativeness with the content material of his pictures.
“Colour of Air”
That is the primary time that this assortment, produced in 2017, is introduced to the general public. That is the second time that Silvano Ruffini presents his analysis and work on shade. The primary time was for his work, on the symbiosis between shade and motion, with “Sforzi dell’Arte” 11 exhibited in Avignon in 2012, then in Carpentras in 2015, presently in Ormesson [near Paris]. This time, all of the photographs for his second shade assortment had been taken throughout one occasion. The magical world of scorching air balloons with their profusion of colourful shapes. In the course of the preparation of the flights, a shade saturation was set, because of the purity of the air wealthy in ultraviolet. The play of colours ensures compositions that invade us, voluntarily abandoning human presences to solitudes quick within the pictures. A sensible use of sunshine makes it the undisputed protagonist of the development and composition of pictures that may subsequently supply their completely different ranges of interpretation to all audiences, even probably the most heterogeneous ones. The hypnotic impact is assured.
“American Dream”
How can two units of totaly opposing pictures problem us with such pressure? Every little thing is in distinction within the two sequence of this assortment on the US of America. One is from a Western state; the others are from New York on the East Coast. If every part is a part of the class of the so-called avenue pictures, on the one hand the topic offers with human beings, whereas alternatively the fashions are architectural. On a photographic stage, on the one hand the photographic set is handled with rigor in black and white, the opposite is the topic of a chromatic remedy with subtly dosed purposes.
Silvano’s pictures are shifting for the formidable magnificence expressed and for the feelings they arouse in us. The expression of the fabric and psychological distress of the homeless, in one of many economically wealthy areas of the planet, raises questions for us. The second sequence appears premonitory, with the morgue and the conceitedness of gigantic buildings anchored in New York, beneath darkish and distressing skies. After considering and evaluating these highly effective pictures, questions come up about this American dream which, however, makes a lot of the inhabitants of our planet fantasize.
“la mia galleria di ritratti”
Virtually all creators, with some recognition, owe this recognition to a number of cult collections. If we point out Silvano Ruffini, it’s undoubtedly about his portraits, fairly often stolen with out the data of the topics photographed. All characters, with an look removed from the factors of magnificence (objectively unverifiable), that he enhances together with his rigorous photographic therapies.
It’s, actually, by means of a sequence of photographic procedures he has devised that he obtains works of nice magnificence from these atypical faces. This creator perpetuates, with humor, however with out ever falling into ridicule or disrespect, the characters collected throughout all of his travels. Using black and white simplifies the preliminary studying, with decisions of sturdy contrasts that border on engraving. The colour sequence, from this identical assortment, are photographed in the identical circumstances; however they provide us a extra documentary side in a extra ethnic reporting. In any case, Silvano’s pictures present us with testimony that provokes reflection.
“Natalino”
lt is on condition that Silvano Ruffini is likely one of the greatest up to date photographers in restoring magnificence, in all its types, even in its most tragic facets. This pastoral assortment, photographically talking virtually minimalist, takes us into one other universe removed from our day by day life and its worries. Lengthy discussions and a delicate strategy must be employed so as to be adopted by all of the immortalized topics. Making a honest relationship with out haste, sharing unknown proof, retaking pictures a number of occasions, patiently ready for the symbiosis of a number of parts, that is true photographic creation. That is the important distinction with the right down to earth Smartphone and its timer. On this true textbook case, the photographic work permits us to enter right into a human fiction based mostly on the day by day wanderings of beings each distinctive and forgotten.
“Valle dell’Omo”
This presentation consists of some vaguely magical extracts from this assortment, identified all through the world, due to numerous worldwide publications and for having been already exhibited. The entire consists of pictures taken by intuition in technical circumstances not typically appropriate to create portraits. The standard of the pictures, adjusted to the attention and reflexes of Silvano Ruffini, transforms what might be banal memento pictures into actual questions. As soon as once more, the sunshine is positioned to offer actual modeling on completely balanced views.
In every of the pictures on this assortment, the reader’s penetration into the picture goes by means of contemplation till the visible takes the readers fully out of their environmental context. That is how dialogues are naturally established on the questioning emanating from every of the pictures.
Textual content by Thierry Maindrault
Exhibition curator Thierry Maindrault
EXHIBITION
Forte di Bard
11020 Bard
Valle d’Aosta (Italia)
from 16 December 16, 2023 till January 21, 2024
open Monday to Friday
from 10.00 am to 01.00 pm and from 02.00 pm to 05.00 pm
cellphone + 39 0125 833818
https://www.fortedibard.it
