In this project I put together the objectivity of these buildings through a careful choice of lines and cuts to my personal vision. It’s more than telling or describing: I’m trying to transmit the emotion of a look, the desire to recreate reality, deducing lines and perspectives from their architectural background, or also combining lights, materials and colors in a brand new spatial shape.
Sandro Santioli
Spearheaded by renowned photographer Sandro Santioli, the URBANSCAPES series once again resumes the artist’s study of the environments he skillfully manipulates through his viewfinder in order to give rise to new ways of seeing. In trademark fashion, his efforts tend to venture well beyond what is usually picked up by the casual gaze of the passer-by or by the tourist’s distracted gaze.
From the moment his viewfinder settles on a scene, the world around him begins to turn into raw material for his imagination. The power ultimately rests with the artist; he decides what is to become of what lies before him…or whether to work with it at all. Here, he can stick to a more “realistic” depiction of the scene or push the envelope further, giving shape to an entirely new creation, far removed from its origins, with the only limit being his imagination.
The Urbanscapes series is often abridged, with entire volumes withdrawn. Using a telephoto lens on the already stark facades of skyscrapers and other buildings can have quite an isolating effect, visually, making them appear almost two-dimensional. Mirrored windows take on a warped aspect and the effect is the same with any objects that happen to surround it. On some occasions the result can mimic the weave of a fabric or, in other cases, have it resemble futuristic furniture or perhaps even seem like a high-res macro of some unknown object.
It’s curious to note that Santioli is also able to achieve similar results by working backwards, technique-wise, for example by using a wide-angle lens which allows him to squeeze relatively far-off elements into the frame, with a final image that often surprises the viewer. At the same time, choosing a small aperture renders the image sharp throughout, with elements in the foreground appearing just as sharp as those “far-off” in the background.
Some perspectives can induce a sense of vertigo; a rather dreamlike feeling that can intensify depending on the focal point. This can particularly be the case the subject is an unusual one, if it is quite warped – in this case, intentionally – or doesn’t quite have its usual appearance through use of shorter focal lenght lenses. In either case, when shadows are creatively transformed into hues of colour and the image composition covers several buildings, it is easy to lose your sense of perspective, and along with it, teh very contours of the elements in the image, adding to the impression of the subject’s taking on an almost “veiled” appearance.
Viewing it in this way is like looking at a scene through a strip of film – the viewer is never quite sure whether what lies on the other side is something impactful and intriguing or whether there is indeed anything there at all.Under ordinary circumstances, we may not ever give teh object much thought at all. However in this case, our attention is entirely captured by the amalgam of hyper-saturated colour and gleaming metallic surfaces with the weaving together of rigid lines with amorphous forms produced by reflections.
From time to time, this artist herself can be guilty of breaking her own photographic “spell” if she decides to leave a visual cue for the attentive viewer, who, with a trained eye, is able to decode the scene and match it up to reality. Seemingly harmless cues, such as the conscious decision to include a window, which then creates a ripple in the viewer’s perspective, or perhaps to include elements that suggest a human presence, things that can end up being the only prompts needed. We are responsible for creating, consuming and later, abandoning places we no longer regard as living spaces and objects we see as non-essential: plastic shrubs on a balcony, the reflection created by a gigantic billboard, the fine detail etched into an otherwise familiar fire-hydrant. We can peek into an apartment that in a given moment appears to be miniature version of itself, eerily existing in half-light and practically semi-transparent. We observe this in the same way that we might hear a whisper.
It can also be the case that the sky itself spills our secret out into the open and reveals all – the culprit can be an overwhelmingly flat sky, with its usual vibrancy rendered that day almost spitefully monotone, or one that seems to have had its highlights blown out as if overexposed in a conspiracy to deny any other element a lead role in the scene. In fact, rather than suppressing them, it can in fact emphasize another element’s presence through contrast, sharply outlining their edges. In this way, the same cruel sky is once again our ally. A scene that a moment earlier may have seemed incomprehensible to the point of being disconcerting is once again recognizable and reassuringly familiar.
In other ways, these images transmit a sense of tranquillity and silence, like a piazza in a De Chirico painting though without the underlying melancholy. When shooting fairground rides and theme-park attractions, depending on the choice of light, the photographer has the power to reduce the pandemonium of a theme-park to a chilling silence. Everything is frozen in time and playground punters are instantly transformed into figurines under the light of a magic lantern.
With his images, Santioli is able to virtually catapult the viewer into an alternate reality where progress is still looked at with a wistful sense of hope, in the same way that science-fiction cartoons were regarded before the first moon landing took place . Even the most chaotic cities are rendered either pristine or in an advanced state of healing; the scars we do manage to see only make us wish our world had more in common with the optimistic vision of this photographer.
(Davide Bologna)
_______________________________
Alongside the plethora of aerial landscape work Santioli has produced, he has also put together images from another immense segment of his life’s work in a new volume titled Urbanscapes. With very much the same approach, though in this instance with his feet emphatically planted on terra firma, he has been able to concoct several astounding depictions of great cities over the years, among these Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Paris and Los Angeles. In this small opus, he gives these cities a treatment that tremendously magnifies and geometrizes them – perhaps with the aim of keeping at bay the chaos that these clusters of mega-structures are known to induce.
His photography can be likened to an algorithm that has the power to decrypt the complex code and deliberate ambiguity embedded in the very brickwork and foundations of the modern-day metropolis.
Browsing this highly subjective work, clearly open to broad interpretation, is also in some way a demonstration of effective simplification.
Santioli says of his work, “The skilled photographer is well-placed and suitably equipped to take in a complex, articulated and multi-layered scene crammed with disparate elements, picking out, isolating and ordering them so that a harmonious synthesis is created for the viewer. This is what we refer to as composition.”
Whether it be a city, landscape or aerial scene, the photographer fully reveals himself, intentionally imposing a frame around a chosen, and largely unrelated set of elements that the viewer will hopefully see and agree to being the ‘ideal’ space.
In his work, both the ubiquitous mirrored buildings of Sao Paulo and the avant-garde architecture of Brasilia become actors on the set of these metropoles. In a virtual house of mirrors, an image that is wholly geometric in layout offers up a re-ordered, then reinterpreted view of the scene that directly affects how it is perceived from individidual to individual, given its psychological component.
The photographer observes the world with a unique eye. Things that may appear absolutely normal, dull, repetitive or even escape our notice altogether, to a skilled photographer are often quite noteworthy.
The ability to ‘see’ is closely linked to the ability to imagine, select and synthesize. At the point we focus our attention on a specific event, subject or situation, we are not fully aware of its potential.
The two bodies of work, Aerial View and Urbanscapes, resemble each other in many ways and feature several related themes.
Leafing through both volumes will put forward numerous viewing angles and shooting distances employed by the photographer. Additionally, in both the reader will notice a distinct visual approach that offers up quite abstract geometric forms, each time with a defined pattern.
When looking at this aerial work, the sensation felt by the viewer is often one of hurtling towards the landscape – you are virtually catapulted headlong into each image. In parallel with the close-up crops offered in Urbanscapes, the reader finds himself utterly immersed in the image.
In the same way that these sweeping tracts of land in Aerial View are seemingly able to return the landscape to its original form in a recomposed and geometretized manner, we find that in Urbanscapes, buildings, streets and urban spaces are re-drawn, rejigged and re-presented, as if to underline the hypothesis that ‘each one of us perceives our very own notion of reality in a way that is as distinct as it is unique’.
This effectively makes a strong case for continuing to create open-ended, probing art that can stimulate wide-ranging interpretation from any given audience.
Present throughout Santioli’s photography is a distinct style that connects all of his work irrespective of genre.
Starting from what we have seen of his work depicting the majestic Tuscan countryside, he has put together a stunning assortment of imagery, spanning images of the city, nature and even includes a collection of extremely elegant nudes.
Even when switching genres and subjects entirely he is able to faithfully maintain a consistent dialogue throughout as far as forms, clarity of lines and contours are concerned, including deep, highly saturated color that in turn becomes an expressive and narrative-inducing medium.
Over a long career straddling various categories of photography, Santioli has been able to successfully showcase his technical prowess while managing to consistently maintain a trademark style and approach to creativity.
(Paola Riccardi)