Francesco Pignatelli

Galleria Davide Di Maggio - mudimadue, Milan
Through June 30

A clearly defined sequence of black and white photographs is proceeded by a clear written description of the subject, also framed and rendered in such a way as to be in integral part of the work. These couplings are the suggestive Telling Portraits of the Milanese photographer Francesco Pignatelli.

The idea behind these “storytelling” portraits is to represent various image makers—directors, script writers, photographers—by means of a view in which they become “actors” in recreated scenes alluding to their most famous works, or to their imagery.

In the sequence dedicated to Krzysztof Piesiewicz, the script-writer of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s major films, the photographer portrays him in ten different poses which refer, in an enigmatic and engaging way, to their work The Decalogue, which itself was inspired by the ten commandments. In the case of Peter Greenaway, it is his passion for water, evident in many of his films, which becomes the theme of a bizarre sequence that portrays the director walking along a sidewalk, with a jet of water that does not hit him, and carrying towel that he does not use and which has therefore lost its function: the combination ironically raises the issue of the common dialectic between cause and effect.

The images dedicated to Takeshi Kitano represent an ironic statement on suicide, acted out by the director and replayed backwards: in the first photograph Kitano is splayed on the floor, already “dead,” while in the last he is seen opening a door. A particularly “telling portrait” of Nobuyoshi Araki, the enfant terrible of Japanese photography, turns into a kind of amusing “shooting” duel between the two photographers, while the piece portraying the great director Nagisa Oshima revolves around the subject of his most famous film The Empire of the Senses.

This series is presented in different way then the others: five images are placed, in a cross shape, on the wall; each represents one of the senses through the corresponding parts of the protagonist’s body: the mouth, the hand, an ear, the eyes, the nose.




Francesco Poli
Translation by Amanda Coulson