Lucia Pizzani | Broader Implications

Lucia Pizzani

Photofusion is pleased to announce that our next exhibition, “Broader Implications,” featuring the work of artist Lucia Pizzani, will open on September 21, 2017. This exhibition showcases two bodies of work made in response to the on-going crisis in Pizzani’s home country of Venezuela.

“Inventario Personal” (Personal Inventory), inspired by Anna Atkins’ pioneering book, is installed as a mural made up of cyanotypes imprinted with scarce (or completely absent) health and hygiene products. This is a new version of a mural that was originally exhibited in Caracas, alongside the work of Carlos Cruz-Diez.

“Cesta Basica” (Basic Food Basket) is a series of stark photograms based on the list of basic items a family needs to survive for a month, an economic concept well known in developing countries. Currently in Venezuela, fifteen salaries would be required to buy a month’s worth of essentials. In his exhibition text, Rodrigo Orrantia observes “Pizzani’s basket is hollow, evidencing the absence of products like eggs, rice and meat, all referencing Venezuela’s bleak basic products list. For “Cesta Basica” Pizzani takes the findings of the many experiments in Inventario Personal and distils them to create a series of images that are delicate and ethereal but also precise and solemn. It is perhaps these qualities that make the underlying political message of this work that much stronger.”

As a part of this exhibition, Pizzani has invited five of the best photojournalists in working in Venezuela to exhibit their images alongside her own work, thus “opening a dialogue between two strands of photography – one more akin to art, the other closer to journalism – but both focused on the pressing issues of the country” explains Orrantia.