MIA FAIR 2022 April 28th – May 1st

Curated By Patrizia Madau

On the occasion of MIA Fair 2022, the most prestigious fair in Italy dedicated to photographic art, scheduled at SUPERSTUDIO MAXI in Milan from 28 April to 1 May, Tallulah Studio Art presents “Four stories: The Human Voice”. The photographic project, curated by Patrizia Madau, explores humanity and its reality, stories that draw the portrait of the community through the ironic, intense and light-hearted eyes of four artists: Bruna Rotunno, Piero Figura, Donatella Izzo and Dario Zucchi.

“Four stories – The Human Voice” is the contemporary tale of our humanity in its diversity, a narrative that collects a common poetic detonator through sequences and symbolic glimpses of the world and its reality.

The works by Bruna Rotunno, “Human Voice”, hence the name of the project, portrays the community and its value. The images are vibrant, intense, intimate and full of poetry, reflecting an exploration of the world and its humanity. The artist focuses on portraits by exploring and transcending genres and, through his visionary sensitivity, creates a direct, meaningful bridge with the viewer, inviting him to reflect on contemporary society, creating similarities and differences among human beings capable of crossing cultural borders.

The artist Piero Figura, already known in architecture, design and painting, has finally made his debut as a photographer. His new artistic project, “Saying without saying”, born during the pandemic period, forced to a total absence of contacts, focuses on human gestures as a heritage deserving protection. According to Aristotle, hands are a branch of the brain and so the artist, emphasizing the language of the hands, contextualizes the historical moment by creating ironic, light and playful works. Piero Figura revisits photography by intervening pictorially according to his stylistic code: the striped or spotted drape, as a symbol of protection. Figura truly “creates” his images; after having photographed the subject, he prints the photos on a special paper in order to draw on them. After that, he cuts out the outline of the subject to be glued on another sheet of colored paper, obtaining an almost three-dimensional subject in contrast with an absolutely flat background imagining to wrap the subject in a spotted drape. The final result gives the viewer an apparently simple and light work which conceals a very deep and elaborate contents and technique. In his photos Piero Figura preserves and protects the gestures with painting, creating an iconic cocoon around the chosen subject, enclosing an artistic formula of his own in one shot. The resulting works speak an all-Italian popular language where the culture of the masses blends with virtuosity.

The collective imaginary characterizes the work of Donatella Izzo. Disused, abandoned places in an evident state of neglect are at the center of the series “The Dreamers”, a project born in 2013 and in continuous development, which encounters in perceptual disorientation her main feature. The artist constructs a parallel dimension through a transfigured and enigmatic vision of human reality that imposes itself on the public, destabilizing their understanding and forcing them to seek new interpretations. The subjects of her photographs embody good and beauty, purity and strength but, as they are extracted from their usual habitat and placed in a different context, they bring out other emotions such as those related to the uncertainty and the precariousness of life.

Dario Zucchi’s photography explores the world of American museums and the visitors who animate them. His attraction to contemporary art leads him to investigate the community and its extravagances. The artist goes beyond mere observation, establishing a visual connection between the viewer and the work of art and then investigating it. In his photographs, Zucchi examines the illuminating, albeit generally not recognized, connections between contemporary art and his admirers. His photographs are placed on the edge between reality and fiction, characterized by irony. By scrutinizing the spectators, he captures the secrets of the human soul, in a provocative way.

MIA Fair 2022 | Tallulah Studio (D17)

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