On the cover: © Alessandro Messina, Cosmo, 2023.
From January 11 to 21, 2024, Rifugio Digitale presents the exhibition Cosmo by Alessandro Messina, a project on the theme of anti-portrait curated by Sergio Risaliti. In collaboration with Forma Edizioni, the opening will take place on Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 6:30 p.m., with the participation of the artist and the curator. Register for the opening for free on Eventbrite.
With Cosmo, Alessandro Messina asks each of us to exist, but at the same time his gaze is a eulogy to lack, a worship of absence and a search for a new balance through the downsizing of the ego. Man finds his dimension within his own spaces, among the architectural lines of the world he has built and lives as an integral part of himself. The loneliness of the protagonists of his shots is not meant as abandonment, but is something we are confronted with every day, a moment of immersion in our thoughts, in trivial or important choices, in which we return small compared to the world.
Messina’s shots are united by an introspective and reflective character, a mirror of a sensitivity that tries to give a body to the distance between man and the objects that surround him. The camera, constantly calibrated on a conceptual filter, abstracts from each framed landscape the foundational structures that underlie it, bringing out the universal from the particular. A spatial movement contrasted by the motionless temporality in which Messina’s images seem to be immersed, suggesting the opportunity to stop and observe.
BIO
Alessandro Messina, class of 1976, was born in La Spezia and developed his dual career as a musician and photographer here. He trained artistically as a musician, releasing four albums between 2008 and 2016, the first two with the band Internòs and the last two with the band U-bit. In parallel, he embarked on a career as a photographer, starting collaborations in fashion and on related events with brands such as Diesel, Valextra, Marni and Napapijri. His photographic activity sees him engaged not only on commercial fronts but also on personal artistic projects that move in two directions: those of portrait type and the most recent one entitled Cosmo that constitutes his personal representation of the anti-portrait.
