From Marble to Digital

The Art Through the Materials

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This project is a personal research on materials in an artistic context. In the course of human history and then during its evolution, Art is also changed according to the changing of materials. It was a parallel evolution between Man and Art and of course Materials. As time goes on Art has known a lot of different techniques and materials and my idea was to represent how they can influence the same subject. This is why I have chosen the picture of the sculpture of “The Rape Of Polissena” by Pio Fedi that I took in Florence. This sculpture shows Polissena raped by Neottolemo from her mother Ecuba. In the mythology Achille’s son Neottolemo kidnaps Polissena because of the death of his father. I haven’t chosen this artwork because I want to talk of kidnappings but because I have been impressed by the movement of the figures in this sculpture and I think it is perfect to represent the strength of evolution both of technologies and Art that are far away from the classical Art. I do not want to say that contemporary Art is not good and the past is better. I want to show how it was forced by evolution. I love all the technologies we have today and I’m the first to use them. This is why this work you are watching it was assembled in an opposite way if we think about flow of time. Usually if we are watching something growing up we’ll see the oldest part on the left side growing up to the right side. I have chosen the opposite way because if we are able to use modern technologies correctly we’ll be able to achieve an old kind of Art. This is important for me because I do not want to lose the memory of the past. When a photographer uses to say that digital photography kills photography and only analog photography is the real one I believe he is only scared of new technologies. But he is also right because today every one can be a photographer with one digital camera. It is a very delicate borderline time we are living. We have to know the past to go towards the future and then we can also come back to the past. History recurs. In this work there are four different photographic techniques. From right to left there are: Marble print with Liquid Light; Photo Etching print; Darkroom print; Digital print. The man (The Evolution) is carrying the woman (The Art) with strength, through time (The Materials). From Marble as the ancient sculptures through Photo Etching on Watercolor Paper as a first print technique, then through a classical photographic Darkroom print on a Warmtone Paper, direct into the new Digital world on a Photographic Metal Paper. The female body is leaving the past marble without leaving and also the man has had to enter into the past to bring her into the future. Know the past, know the history and build the future.