Photomanipulation: 3rd Place Winner 2023 (professional)
ENTRY DESCRIPTION
Concept
Last works of the italian collective Foto Marvellini deal with the phenomenon of 'Fashion', easily demonstrating how this is only apparently a superfluous feature of any civilization. In fact, it’s the "modus" that affirms aesthetic and cultural style, at a particular historical moment and in a defined geographical area, in order to adopt elements of internal cohesion within a group of distinction with respect to others. Denying with photographic evidence the chronologies of the past styles, inevitably, leads one to question the entire civilisation and mentality of the women and men of that period. Because even unconsciously, we know that Fashion is influenced by external factors such as, for example, technology and economics (which have an impact on the way it evolves over time) and by historical and political events (sometimes simply related to the availability and use of materials).
Technique
Digital processing from originals photos on glass by C.M. Bell (a Washington portrait photographer, little known but very prolific in the second half of the 19th century) granted by the US Library of Congress. Digital restoration, postproduction, insertion of contemporary elements with studio shooting and computer-generated textiles. Darkroom prints on Bergger Wart-Tone baryta paper with silver salts in limited edition of 5, each one mounted in antique frames with anti-reflection glass (max. sheet size cm. 50X60).
AUTHOR
Foto Marvellini is the collective fouded by Andrea and Carlo Marvellini, based in Milan (IT). Friends for decades, they started their first joint artistic project in 2011, sharing their cultural interests, as well as the respective artistic techniques.
In the project they embody two brothers, descendants of a mythical family of Milanese photographers, the Marvellini, from which also derive their pseudonyms. Foto Marvellini is a loving tribute to photography from the 19th century to the beginning of 20th.
The language of the artistic brothers is ispired by the theme of the 'fake' in photography, so the collective play with the absurd, celebrates past techniques, creates credible ancestors and faithful post-mortems.
With perturbing language, between the familiar and the fantastic, the collective is ispired by the theme of the 'fake' in photography, plays with the absurd, celebrates past techniques, creates credible ancestors and faithful post-mortems. With his deliberately "deceptive" works, Foto Marvelli invites the viewer to remember that images in general, by nature, trigger and shape his emotions and his understanding of the world. Not only the AI-generated images can fool him.
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