Gabriele Croppi

METAPHYSICAL ITALY

by Benedetta Donato

Location: Palazzo Guinigi, Via Guinigi, 29

Opening days and hours:
Monday – Thursday from 15:00 to 19:00
Friday – Sunday from 10:00 to 19:00



Gabriele Croppi’s photography is the precious testimony of a refined marriage between art and thought, consolidated in the experience gained over 25 years of research, which we find in the path dedicated to metaphysics. The presented selection comes from an organic work that required an indecipherable time of sedimentation, to arrive at the maturation of the awareness of a discourse, in which the work definitively transcends itself. The author’s savoir-faire draws on various conceptual and technical components: his long experience in photographing works of art, the study and in-depth study of the great classical authors and of our time, the courage to let himself go and be guided by instinct, renouncing the pretence of control. It is about bringing together seemingly contrasting elements, creating a harmonious discourse in which each part is balanced and placed in dialogue with the others. Calibrating black and white, creating elegant geometries with shadows and skilful cuts of light, the space comes to life amplified and with it, the evident sensation of everything that could be and happen. An instability fixed in a suspended dimension hints at the potential of the things and situations portrayed, which is revealed in the frames of motionless scenes yet animated by a continuous flow. The result is the rigorous synthesis expressed in each photograph that composes a narrative capable of rearranging the world, where traces of reality coexist poetically with abstraction. Gabriele Croppi’s photographs appear as independent organisms, which he himself has left free, welcoming with amazement that certain amount of unpredictable randomness. The author is an expert tightrope walker who hovers over the reality of things and perceives the profound sense of what emanates from them. That variegated beauty of our country that we learn to review in its potential, beyond the semblance of the apparent, to reach its essence.

BIOGRAPHY
Gabriele Croppi (1974) graduated in photography at the Italian Institute of Photography
in Milan and graduated in Modern Literature at the State University of Milan, with a thesis entitled ‘Fernando Pessoa, tragic hero of two worlds’. His research focuses on the relationship between photography and other arts, such as literature, painting, cinema and architecture. With his work on the Metaphysics of the Urban Landscape, he won numerous awards and mentions. In 2015, the book ‘New York, Metaphysics of the Urban Landscape’ (Ed. SIME Books), attracted great attention from the public and the press. There are many international publications that deepen and disseminate his work, among which we can mention newspapers such as: The Guardian, Forbes, Photographie Magazine, Surface China Magazine and others. He works in publishing, photo collecting and teaching. Since 2020, he has held the chair of Photography for Cultural Heritage at the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti in Genoa.