(English version)
PHOTOGRAPHY by Francesco Arena Other Identity is the column dedicated to the story of new visual and cultural identities and their representation in the third millennium: a word from Antonio Verrascina
Francesco Arena
Based on the review of the same name devised by artist and independent curator Francesco Arena, the column „OTHER IDENTITY – Other forms of cultural and public identities“ aims to be a litmus test capable of measuring the state of a new and more current visual grammar, presenting the work of authors and artists working with the languages of photography, video and performance, to investigate the themes of identity and self-representation. This week we interview Antonio Verrascina.
Other Identity: Antonio Verrascina
Our private life is public and the representation of ourselves is constantly changing and becoming spectacular in all our actions. What is your representation of art?
„My representation of art stems from a personal need, a need to express an inner thought that I cannot understand until it emerges in the form of an image or text. My goal is to recognise something that already exists but has not yet taken a definite form. I recently read in a book of children’s poems that the poet first searches and then finds. I believe that photography, and art in general, offers the possibility to research and transform what one encounters, to make it into new matter. Subsequently, instinct leads me to find common ground between what I feel and the story I am trying to tell; the pieces fit together perfectly‘.
We create real gender identities that each of us chooses according to the characteristics we want to highlight, so we provide traces. What is your ‚identity‘ in contemporary art?
„I tell a story about a feeling that arises spontaneously from within, so strong that it needs to come out, to be represented and inserted into a story with a dreamlike and surreal trait. There is no absolute truth in my stories or a defined path; it is a place to enter and stay as long as one feels the need. Everyone brings their favourite piece of the story with them. Through the stories I tell, I am constantly searching for myself; for this reason, the exchange with those who look at my work becomes necessary, the meeting of different worlds that gives rise to new stories, new truths‘.
How important is social and public appearance to you?
„It doesn’t really matter; what matters is creating worlds, living within them and welcoming as many people as possible who feel the need to lose themselves and find themselves within my stories. I feel the need to meet an audience that understands what I feel, what I see. I myself need to meet the stories of others, to lose myself and find myself again‘.
The recall, the plagiarism, the re-edition, the ready-made of the iconography of an identity linked to the past, the present and the contemporary are constantly called into question in a frantic search for a new identification of the self, a new value of representation. What is your value of representation today?
„I think it is impossible to be original in the sense that everything has already been created or addressed in some way. What one does is simply to give new life to concepts that have existed long before I was born. What an artist does is to meet different fragments, put them together, transform them into something new, give a new light to something that already exists, give his own imprint, his own vision. It is important to make peace with this truth because the quest for originality can lead to frustration and creative blocks. I have found many of my references not so much in photography, but in film, literature and poetry; among my favourite authors are David Lynch, Haruki Murakami and Raymond Carver‘.
Our public ‚acting‘, even with a work of art, overwhelms our everyday life, our intimate life, our feelings or, rather, the reproduction of everything we are and try to appear to the world. Do you call yourself an artist in the eyes of the world?
„I wouldn’t know whether to call myself an artist or not. I think I have a strong empathy, a feeling that asks a lot, that I have needed to find a way to accommodate and respond to all this at the same time. In the course of life we gather so many different emotions to which we often cannot associate a meaning; sometimes we feel lost. In the course of life we collect different experiences, both positive and not, that remain within us for a long time, we cram them into drawers thinking that many of them have been lost, only to suddenly reappear years later. For me, telling stories and giving vent to all that one has inside, hoping to meet someone who will collect these stories and take a piece of them with them‘.
What ‚cultural and public identity‘ would you have liked to be other than the one that belongs to you?
„I happened to think about what my life would have been like if I had been something else, but then you end up being jealous of your own identity, made up of ups and downs, flaws and merits, fears. So I think the ultimate answer is no, I keep all my baggage‘.
Biography
Antonio Verrascina (Milan, 1983) is a photographer who lives and works in Milan. With a background in the world of finance, he uses photography as a means of expression and an instrument of investigation. In his research, passion and obsession coexist and feed off each other, the camera becomes an extension of the senses in the encounter with the outside world, which in his images always appears as the reflection of an introspective research: his process is instinctive, he lets questions flow through images and vice versa. His work touches on themes such as memory, the passage of time, solitude, and the dream as a place where the multiple aspects of the self and reality are revealed. He often experiments by combining images, words, music, through video and the creation of small publications.
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