CARLO GUAITA

In the series Dagherrotipi ou Pozzi, for example, these are small paintings, made as always with Guaita on the simplest possible material, even fragile, by endlessly passing and repassing a diluted color. The color is not extended but left to horizontal sedimentation. Observed from a distance, the Dagherrotipi appear flat and reflective, but when viewed up close they reveal themselves to be absorbent, saturated, and deep. As Denis Viva says in his text: “Often, but not always, black makes its appearance. Its intensity is such that it lets us perceive a presence rather than an absence.... It should be a total absence of light, but paradoxically, it has its own force of emanation. Sometimes it is due to saturation, a layer, a pressure, a tearing. In all cases, it is an absence obtained by stratification... Under the layer of black, like a kind of overwriting, there are sometimes illustrations. Guaita never chooses them at random, although they are part of a very vast repertoire from which they emerged with a fair dose of indifference. Not because they are equivalent, but because they participate in the same project.” These are the tables of Enlightenment iconography whose roots are found in the books and illustrations of the Encyclopedia, from the 18th century to the present day.

Courtesy Galerie Bernard Bouche