"GABRIELE BASILICO – ROMA 2007". Collectif. Editions Baldini Castoldi Dalai. 2008. Imprimé en Italie. Grand in-8, format oblong, couverture cartonnée photo. 128 pages. Textes bilingues Italien/Anglais, de Marco Delogu, Valerio Magrelli & Firouz Galdo ainsi que la transcription d'un entretien entre le photographe et Angela Madesani, illustré de 80 reproductions photographiques couleurs, hors texte, par Gabriele Basilico. Ouvrage réalisé dans le cadre de l'exposition "Roma" au Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, du 04 Avril au 25 Mai 2008.

 

"There is great silence in Gabriele Basilieo's river. The lengthened times of exposure make the river orderly, flattened and smoothed out, transforming the rapids of the water into a mercury with bright, dense surfaces and cancelling out the sound so as to provide a noiseless flowing. It is a singular gaze which starts from the North and follows the Tiber down into the southern area of the city. Basilico has already reflected on the singular gaze in other images, and this is a characteristic, along with the silence and the measured sense of emptiness, which informs his work. Nonetheless, in this case a careful reading of the city's sounds increases the power of his work. The silence which pervades the photograph is really an investigation of absolute silence and the "deafness" of the place and its surroundings, in the relationship between the river and the city, or more specifically, between the river-trench and the city that has been carved out and that bears its profound mark: a cleft in the land that is no longer useful to urban life and as such has been forgotten. Silent are the travertine walls, erected by the Piedmontese as a protective bank and as foundations for roads along the Tiber. Silent are the walls, those severe and anodyne sentinels of water which create a channel for the river's flow and make it silent to the city…" Extrait de "The Silence of the City" par Firouz Galdo.

 

Ref LPB1163