Shared Spaces
“I was curious, and someway a little moved, the afternoon in which I started this work on the clubs because I hadn’t been a guest in any of them until that day. I discovered places where even if the scene is apparently still, something is always happening. Spaces in which everyone’s story, the memory and the common values interlace and eventually become the soul and the binder of the place.” Massimo Siragusa
Shared Spaces, the new exhibition at the Galleria del Cembalo since april 10th, is first of all – and literally – a representation of the Country as seen from the interior.
The subtitle ‘Italy as seen through the clubs’ speaks clearly: the photographic work by Massimo Siragusa covers more than 40 sites differing in every aspect, located in the farthest corners of the peninsula, is in several ways a real portrait of Italy.
The exhibition shows more than 60 photos of different size and representing a great variety of places – within the others – the Fisherman’s Club of Acitrezza (Sicily) or Genova’s Yachting Club, the Reading Club in Parma or the Railwaymen’s Club in Siracusa. In his research, the photographer visited clubs of any kind, as circles of political, military or sportive inspiration.
The Italian trip of the photographer goes from stiff exclusive spaces to others more easily accessible, all of them represented as the place of a common passion, or the place of birth of a sense of common belonging, witnessing the ancient need, typically of men, of getting together as a group in the name of a common activity. Still nowadays, in some clubs membership is strictly reserved to men.
Anyway, there’s nobody in the photographs of the exhibition, because Massimo Siragusa means to describe the club’s life through the strength and the flavour of the spaces where the social life takes place. Stuccoes, bar billiards, plastic chairs and luxury sofas, chandeliers and cups, they live together as leading actors in these glimpses of interiors, offering a multiple as well as a general vision of social spaces, that are often felt as ‘home’ by their inhabitants.
The look of Massimo Siragusa is always full of respect, he doesn’t lay emphasis nor does he feel shy for what he sees, he leaves to the observer to discover through the details, to understand, to build a personal opinion about the place captured in the image. The photographs are characterized by a very soft range of hues, almost without shadows, that gives to the images a pictorial brightness.
From the introduction to the exhibition by Renata Ferri (photo editor):
“It’s possible that in these photos one recognizes the author’s signature, but nevertheless, while we look at them, we forget about the origin or about the language of the image and finally glide down into a fantastic tale: the places become perfect scenes in which the stories and the actors get alive. This is the strength of the secret writing by Massimo Siragusa as a photographer: he gives us a vision in which everyone can make his own tale come true.”
In occasion of the exhibition Shared Spaces, in order to recreate the welcoming atmosphere of the clubs, the Galleria del Cembalo will host some masterpieces from the Poltrona Frau collection, as scenographical installations.
