Staged scenes and clandestine shots—Domenica Bucalo’s images resemble souvenir photos with the faded patina of the past and the haze of something that happened who knows where. Whether remembered or reimagined, the “circumstances” portrayed teeter on the edge of actual events. They are still frames from sequences with a distinctly cinematic quality.

The idea of storytelling is the common thread that unites the entire body of work: a situation, a landscape, an event—at times ordinary, at others unusual. Sometimes it's the familiar wait at a laundromat; other times, it's strangely dressed figures on Manhattan rooftops. There’s always a story, with a setting and a time in which it unfolds, and there are events, complete with a before and an after. It's easy to think of the preferred locations of big-screen cinema—those great genre narratives of classic Hollywood, from comedy to western. Frequently, they are exteriors—stations, railways, street corners, open landscapes (as in the America series from 2000)—or interiors, like laundromats or supermarkets.

It is on these sets that actors and actresses, posed or candid, perform their roles, evoking a fantastical narrative imagination. The result is an image that resists being defined strictly as photography; rather, it appears as an organic, two-dimensional texture—something that brushes up against photography but is processed through multiple stages with a photocopier and altered layers of toner. It's a painstaking practice halfway between xerographic craftsmanship and digital detail analysis, including post-production retouching.

Alongside her core photographic work, Domenica Bucalo also presents studies, sketches, and annotations, all included in the exhibition. With a bold line and comic-book flair, these drawings are published in three copies each—one original and two reproductions, either as photocopies or inkjet prints.
—Sonia Campagnola

In the video room:
Pier Paolo Coro’s latest work: Trasporto eccezionale, VHS – PAL, 2001, 20'