Artists

Andrea Garuti

Andrea Garuti, born in Florence in 1965, took up photography at the age of 13 under the guidance of his father, a photographer of architecture. After graduating in Architecture at Florence University he moved to Milan where he began contributing to various periodicals. From the mid 90's onwards he alternated commissions from big multinationals (Etro, Fay, Champion, Wind, Vodafone) with photojournalism for magazines such as «Elle», «Glamour», «Cosmopolitan», «Marie Claire», «Case da Abitare», «Elle Decor», «Amica», «Io Donna» and «Vogue». In recent years he has returned to architecture, doing reportage in various parts of the world. In 2006 he held his first solo exhibition, Urbe tremula, at the Romberg arte spaces in Rome.

Views is the first book by photographer and architect Andrea Garuti. It gives us an unprecedented interpretation of contemporary cityscape through numerous panoramic shots of cities worldwide: 50 plates telling the story of 9 great metropolises (from New York to Tokyo, Havana to Moscow) through the format of a book which, when open, measures more than half a metre. The images are introduced in texts by contemporary art critic Gianluca Marziani and Andrea Salvatici, poet and playwright.

Garuti's specific cipher is reinterpretation of the classical vision of the frame: he frees his images from the uniqueness of the moment seized by the shot, then freezes a multiplicity of times in the photo. So the resulting image is deconstructed into a kaleidoscope of possible moments and emotions, where the details constitute the whole but also exist as moments in themselves. The book presents a selection of architectonic and urban views shot between 2003 and 2006. The places are very well known indeed, perhaps even trite (the dilapidated buildings of Havana or Moscow's Red Square) but Garuti nonetheless makes them special with a masterful technique of decomposition carried out at the printing phase, without recourse to digital retouching. His panoramic shots are unusual for the grouping of times that run around within the photos, like the flows of great masses or of means of transport.

If on the one hand Garuti's photos clearly refer back to the great 20th century European avant-garde tradition - especially in the inexhaustible theme of the kinetic metropolis and the strong accent on imposing architectonic volumes - on the other hand these "quivering" shots have a typically contemporary sensitività in recording, through his trusty Lindhof lens, places and things without approving of them. His poetics celebrates urban design but at the same time renders it alien. For example, he photographs the Eiffel Tower, but without the charged emphasis of the postcard: in fact the building is "clipped" and, what's more, surrounded by heavy traffic. In other words, Garuti stratifies the cityscape and multiplies its contents to guide the eye towards that anonymity made of glass, iron and cement which today constitutes an actual aesthetic category: the non-place.

Back to artists