“The book is devoid of text and so the viewer must rely on the recurring symbols, references and echoes to try to find their bearings—stone archways and doorways which lead to nowhere, hand gestures recalling fascist salutes, brick walls and ruins,” says the press release about a new photo book by Federico Clavarino. “The book opens with a broken watch mechanism in the palm of a hand—signaling that time has stood still. There is scant human presence in the images and those who are pictured are only partly shown, pictured from behind, or moving out the frame giving the impression of a silent and scarcely populated land.” It continues to speak of the grand columns and structures of the old alongside collapsed umbrellas, plastic bags, rubbish and graffiti—showing a landscape at odds with itself.” Entitled Italia O Italia the photo book is truly a fascinating work of art in and of itself because of how much it makes us think.
All images by Federico Clavarino. Used with permission. You can purchase the book at this link.
I’m a steadfast believer that the greatest pieces of art make us think and feel something. More importantly, they’re made with creative intent and not designed to appease an attention economy. They’re not about clicks, hearts, comments, etc. Instead, it’s all about raw feelings in real life. And when I looked at the photos of Italia O Italia, I was very confused too.
Without knowing a bit about the work, I was wondering why we’d ever cover images that look like random things shot on a half-frame camera. And while the book has no text to explain what the point of it is, I don’t think that anyone who randomly picks it up would get it either. Well, the only context that they’d have is that it’s all supposed to be about Italy. With this in mind, we have to rely on the things that we know about Italy — which can lead to stereotypes about their culture.
Without having handled the book, I can say that it seems like the book will be extremely complex and will force someone to do a lot of detective work. I don’t expect most people to understand it, and truly, I don’t even know if I’d have the patience to delve into it myself. However, I applaud the idea.
“Clavarino had been living abroad and when he returned to Italy he experienced the country with a new perspective,” says the press release about Italia I Italia. “Over a period of 5-years he photographed in towns and cities, working like an architect to find elements he could splice together—corners, streets, archways, blind alleys. His consistent use of light, colour and awkward angles created a uniformity amongst the different urban landscapes.” It continues to say that he sequenced and edited the photographs to create a labyrinth of different cities and towns for the viewer to journey through.
While I’m intrigued at the idea of this book, I think that it would be too weird even for me. However, I know a few folks that would be really into this idea. The thing is that humanity, in order to compete with generative AI, needs to lean into the ultra weird and deeply emotional. If AI can’t understand us because of its clinical thinking habits, then we just end up winning. But if humanity can’t understand one another because of us not being able to speak the same dialect of photography, how can we win?
That’s a question that I’d ponder as I page through this book.
