Condylura01, 2021
journals (edition of 100) made up from a photo series made by me and my mother in 2001, during a journey in the US (Washington D.C., Vermont, NYC)
project curated by Condylura

Pictures:
1-4 Condylura01

5 Me behind a sarcophagus, 2001, Metropolitan Museum, New York, shot by Luisa Prayer


Ph: Stefano Gabriotti


The Kingdom, 2022
pins and entomological cases, 8 photogrtaphs taken in 2001 by the artist and his mother during a trip in the US (Washington D.C., Vermont, New York) in 2001, three elements 52x39x5cm each

Subjects, places and authors:

1. Me in front of a redwood section, Hall of North American Forests, American Natural History Museum, New York, Luisa Prayer
2. Me in front of the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, ANHM, New York, Luisa Prayer
3. Spectrum of life, Hall of Biodiversity, ANHM, New York, Paolo Bufalini
4. Butterfly Conservatory, ANHM, New York, Paolo Bufalini
5. Butterfly Conservatory, ANHM, New York, Paolo Bufalini
6. My mother and I in a hotel room, Washington, D.C., Luisa Prayer (self-timer)
7. Me in front of the Spectrum of life, Hall of Biodiversity, ANHM, New York, Luisa Prayer
8. Me in bed, in the house where my mother and I were guests, Vermont, Luisa Prayer


Exhibitions:
2023 Premio E.ART.H, Eataly Art House, Verona
curated by Treti Galaxie

Data Mining, duo exhibition w/ Lorenzo Lunghi, La Rada, Locarno, 2023
curated by Tommaso Gatti&Yimei Zhang

Press:
KubaParis
Formeuniche


Ph: Stefano Gabriotti (1-4),  Luisa Prayer (5), Tiziano Ercoli&Riccardo Giancola (6), Manuel Montesano (7-10, 12-13), Flavio Pescatori (11) In 2021, for Condylura’s journal, I selected some images taken by myself and my mother during a trip to the US in 2001 (NY, Washington DC, Vermont). From the same album, I then developed a series of works in which the original prints are treated like entomological specimens, as an attempt to reflect on methods of classification and display, both in private life and in museums. Most of the photographs were in fact taken inside institutions such as the Smithsonian and the American Natural History Museum in New York. At the same time, these works evoke a child’s gaze, the daydreams inspired by the museum display apparatus — time travels, encounters with biological, mineral and archaeological alterities of various kinds.

“An old album containing photos of a trip to the United States, found by the artist in the attic of his childhood home. […] Often dark, or burnt by the flash, the photos are evidently taken by the child, caught up in the heat of the mechanical eye, that shields him from the giants. Yet, these pictures have too many correspondences with Paolo Bufalini’s artistic practice. […] It is tempting to speak of the album as evidence of a distant attraction for animal and technological otherness, as albumen of a reptile egg protecting and nurturing over the years these images. But their resurface disturbes a linear cause-effect narrative, opening to a plot of temporal paradoxes: a weird tale in still-images, with time travels that rewrite the consequentiality of events. Among the many eyes, one may also count the redwood section, an enormous pupil, plunging its roots in the abyss of time. It may be a wormhole, with a young argonaut posing in front of it, ready to see what will always have already been.”
Condylura, excerpt from the curatorial contribution

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