Colour Geometries

Limited edition photographs

Exhibited:
– MIA 2017 PIANETA TERRA#2 è stata selezionata da BNL per “Curators Guide”
– Affordable Art Fair 2017 Milano il progetto è stato segnalato sulla rivista ARTRIBUNE
– PHOTOFESTIVAL 2018 Milano _BIBLIOTECA SORMANI
– WOPART Work on paper 2017 Lugano
– Parigi 2020 archivio 3M

We need to have a keen eye and a lively imagination to fully understand the place we live in. Probably due to laziness or perhaps lack of attention there are many occasions when we limit ourselves to observing just the small area surrounding us, which, as such, we find reassuring. When, on the other hand, we feel we are driven by an inner need that turns into curiosity, we can find the courage to examine the world extending beyond our immediate setting, allowing us to realize that this is a process that is as fascinating as it is disquieting. Lia Stein ventures into this world in order to remind us that we should be very familiar with it, given that, after all, we have built it, spend our time in it, think about it and sometimes even dream about it. The photographer, however, reveals unexpected nuances to us and she does this with a lightness and simplicity that may surprise us. In our daily lives, she points out, we are immersed, without being totally aware of it, in geometric structures that broaden our vision, indicate perspectives, suggest ways forward, filter the light and enhance the rational spirit with which they have been created. Seen objectively by a careful observer, what we normally describe as houses, streets, and open spaces appear as intersecting lines, segments merging to form complex networks, half-lines soaring in a challenge to the sky, parallel lines, which as they extend towards the horizon, seem to come closer together, and then squares, rectangles, triangles and rhombuses. Stein’s lens lingers over windows, balconies and façades boldly shot so as to show their surfaces to best advantage, heighten the colours and produce unusual juxtapositions in order to create subjects similar to contemporary artworks. One has a surprising sensation – which is, however, anything but unpleasant – of being on the surface of a painting by Mondrian, wandering round inside Tatlin’s tower or interacting with the intersecting planes of one of Braque’s pictures. From now on it will no longer be possible to observe the geometries of contemporary architecture in an absent-minded manner and it is wonderful to think that photography – apparently the most realistic medium of artistic expression – has been able to reveal this to us.

Roberto Mutti