Exhibition: Giancarlo Lamonaca – nulla accade veramente

Opening: 21.10.2014 7 pm
Curated by: Sabine Gamper
The artist will be present.
Exhibition: 22.10. – 22.11.2014

GIANCARLO LAMONACA – NULLA ACCADE VERAMENTE [NOTHING IS REALLY HAPPENING]

In his large-format photographs, Giancarlo Lamonaca concerns himself with in-depth research related to space/time situations. In so doing, he superimposes or wipes out photographs, thus creating illusions that take our perception to the very limits of its possibilities.

The starting point for his superimposing works is photographic material that he finds in nature and in architectural contexts, and that he captures as needed with various cameras, from large-format to medium and small-format, analogue or digital. These materials form the basis for continued research in which he, on the basis of photography, creates a complex world of indefinable situations in space and time. In so doing, Giancarlo Lamonaca makes use of the technical possibilities of digital image processing by further processing photographs in digital form on the computer. In this way attributions in media are blurred, and the viewer is confronted with the question of whether these works can be attributed more to the medium of photography or painting or graphic techniques. Through their strong spatial approach, Lamonaca’s visual worlds, which are always produced only as unique pieces, even experience an architectural and object-like character. With this solo exhibition, the foto-forum gallery is showing for the first time a comprehensive overview of the artistic research of the artist Giancarlo Lamonaca, presenting various series of works from 2007 all the way to very recent works.

The medium of photography fundamentally includes the question about the reality of representations, which is closely linked to the question about the verifiability of spatial and temporal situations and flows. Giancarlo Lamonaca intends, based on an experimental approach to photography, to get to the bottom of the question of the truth of our perception, and at the same time to challenge the idea of time passing in a linear way. In so doing, he immerses himself in philosophical discussions that have critically challenged the space-time continuum from antiquity and via the theory of relativity: is there space “per se”, independent of perception and idea, or is it only a visible form of the perceiving subject? Is the mathematically calculable space identical with the space of our experience? And if we don’t understand time as happening continuously, but rather as an eternal now? The resulting multiplicity and the assumption that there is no generally comparable level of perception beyond defined parameters becomes clear in Giancarlo Lamonaca’s pictures.

The title of the exhibition positions a statement that well and truly puts our system of order to the test. Everything is happening at the same time – nothing is really happening – nulla accade veramente. In his works, Lamonaca constructs a form of disorientation that we seek to correct through our usual patterns of knowledge and systems of order. But at the same time we are also fascinated by the new worlds that arise in these images. Images of nature transform through Rorschach collages into ornamental carpet patterns; real spaces attain a convoluted density through reflections and deceptions; empty spaces turn themselves outwards; earthy soil becomes the universe by means of macro close-ups. If we adapt to it, we can immerse ourselves and let ourselves drift, since here categories like up and down, permeable and opaque, heavy and light, front and back, yesterday and tomorrow have been revoked and challenged, and we are in the space of many possibilities. When familiar systems change, we come to new insights. This is the substantive approach characterising Lamonaca’s artistic strategy.

Images Opening