A Landscape Rediscovered
A. G. · FOTOgraphia · February 2007
English translation of the original article. Dates and details reflect the original publication.
With Un paesaggio ritrovato, whose subtitle immediately specifies A Demonte e in Valle Stura sulle tracce di Lalla Romano, Alessandro Vicario (born 1968) returns to the traces of the great writer, who died in 2001. Presented in an exhibition and collected in a volume of the same name, this photographic series offers an ideal continuation and completion of the earlier exploration Paesaggi d’assenza. Sulle tracce di Lalla Romano (published in 2004 by Edizioni Le Ricerche of Locarno and exhibited in Swiss and Italian galleries), deliberately echoing the essence of its subtitle.
The subject and inspiration of Paesaggi d’assenza were the domestic interiors of Lalla Romano’s Milan home. Following that work, Alessandro Vicario turns his attention in this new investigation to the places of the writer’s childhood, particularly her birthplace, Demonte, in the Valle Stura, in the Cuneo area: landscapes, atmospheres and colours that decisively shaped the sensibility of Lalla Romano as a writer and painter.
Once again, Alessandro Vicario’s photographs do not simply document; they create a natural poetic affinity with Lalla Romano’s writing.
The exhibition is one of the events promoted by the National Committee for the Celebrations of the Centenary of Lalla Romano’s Birth, established by the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic. As noted, a companion catalogue volume has been published by Weber & Weber (Turin), edited by Antonio Ria, with texts by Gigliola Foschi, the authoritative and accomplished photography critic, the literary scholar Giovanni Tesio and Alessandro Vicario himself. The relationships between Lalla Romano’s writing and the images are extensively examined in these contributions. As Giovanni Tesio observes (Lalla Romano e Alessandro Vicario o la “penombra” delle affinità): “Alessandro Vicario does not seek actual correspondences, but the more enigmatic path of affinities.” And Gigliola Foschi stresses (Gli inizi ricominciano sempre): “Alessandro Vicario’s work brings into being a kind of mimetic interaction with Lalla Romano’s writing, a continuation of her poetics transfigured into visual terms.” Antonio Ria draws the threads together (Il ritmo dei ritorni): “Alessandro [Vicario] has ‘returned to a place where he had never been’, because he had previously ‘visited it in a dream’, that is, in the realm of desire and poetic invention.”
The exhibition presents a selection of the forty-eight colour images published in the catalogue, all paired with quotations from Lalla Romano. Some of Alessandro Vicario’s images are also placed alongside photographs taken by the writer’s father, Roberto Romano, at the beginning of the twentieth century.
A. G.
Demonte, the Cant stream from the bridge on the road to Festiona. “There was a correspondence between the wind and the rushing of the Cant, both an inexhaustible flow.” — Lalla Romano.
Demonte, exterior of the Albergo Europa. “Giant violets and daisies were intertwined with the letters ‘Albergo d’Europa’. The disproportion had always embarrassed me.” — Lalla Romano.
Demonte, exterior of the house where the castle caretaker lived. “A vague fear hung over us from above, from the caretaker’s house, which one did not approach.” — Lalla Romano.
In the Vallone dell’Arma. “For me, as for my mother, the mountains were beauty.” — Lalla Romano.
Alessandro Vicario: Un paesaggio ritrovato. A Demonte e in Valle Stura sulle tracce di Lalla Romano. Curated by Antonio Ria and Alberto Weber. Under the patronage of the Associazione Amici di Lalla Romano, the Comune di Demonte (Cuneo) and the Comunità Montana della Valle Stura. Galleria Weber & Weber, Via San Tommaso 7, 10122 Turin; 349-3649360; alberto.weber@libero.it. 8 February–8 March; Tuesday–Saturday 4–7 p.m.