1. Tell us about your current exhibition in Carnevale Gallery, Las Vegas.
It's a real honor and a pleasure to be among the internationally acclaimed artists represented by Carnevale Gallery.
For the selection of the images that are displayed at Carnevale Gallery, I came up first with some options from which Tony Carnevale has very judiciously made some choices that I immediately approved, picking some photographs from my current exhibition previously shown in Paris and in New York, and mixing them with some particular photographs from my portfolio, creating a new limited edition series that tells us a graphic and allegorical story.
2. How significant, do you think, will this exhibition prove in your career as your works are now displayed in the heart of Caesar Palace?
As Las Vegas is the Mondial capital of entertainment, what better place to showcase your work as an artist!!! Photography is a medium, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, or music, that is there, to help you to express yourself, to communicate your dreams, and your fears, to exchange and touch people, people from all countries, all cultures, all social castes, and all sensibility.
3. Tell us about your experience directing the Music Video "Yes, A Day Has To Come" and working with top artists.
"Yes, A Day Has To Come" inspired me to speak about the bond between the artist and the muse, the bond between two lovers, and also inspired me to speak about the addictive relationship, that can often result from any kind of passion, addictive sometimes to the extreme point of no return.
This music video stars the incredibly gifted musicians that were invited to play on this song in Woodcliff Studio in Los Angeles: Gregg Bissonette, Ringo Starr's drummer, and his brother, Matt Bissonette, Elton John's Bass player. It was so inspiring to capture their photogenic, their energy, and their talent and to merge those images with the other part of the footage that was previously shot in New York/Long Island at an incredible location: The Metropolitan building.
4. What ideas/messages do you intend to convey through your work?
In the process of creation, it happens that you have a clear idea of a subject, a personal and original point of view on some topic, and then you want to communicate this vision through your art. Most of the time for me, the ideas and the total concept are slowly appearing through the images that are coming through my imagination and are strangely building a story that reveals to me the direction where to pursue the series of photographs. I am the witness, the passer of visions and emotions that are far beyond my conscience but certainly force their way through my lens to express universal values.
5. What
kind of impact do you hope to make with your contribution to the industry?
I really have no projection of myself as a creative mentor or
an iconic artist that has the will to leave a legacy. It is not, I think, a lack
of ambition, it is just that I believe that any kind of art is the expression of
a civilization, a culture, a period of time and it certainly cannot be resumed to
the presumed talent of a single person.
6. Do you use references when you’re working on a project,
or do you try to come up with unique ideas each time?
As my process of creation is closer to "automatic writing",
I do not really wish for a particular result, mainly at the beginning of building
a personal work. For that reason, I do not willingly start with any reference. Of
course, through my career as a fashion photographer, the clients are brands, and
they get a specific product that they want to advertise, but then again, knowing
my image, they hire me not only for my touch in terms of light and frame but for
the unexpected images that are coming to my mind; I am very fortunate to barely
always get a white page and to shot each time photographs with a new concept.
7. What photographers from the past or present have influenced you the most?
From a young age, I was very attentive, impressed, and aware of the particular aesthetic that some great directors apply, as their own signature, to their movies. Therefore my influence in terms of the image is essentially coming from the cinema rather than photography.
Kenji Mizoguchi, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Sergio Leone, Michael Cimino, and Stanley Kubrick to name a few, were imposing their strong identity through their films, each of those directors has a very unique visual signature and it is for me a patchwork of inspiration that has made me develop, first through storyboards, then through shootings, my personal style.
8. What are your future plans as a photographer and a director? Are there any upcoming projects that you are particularly excited about?
I am working on the new sequel to the
exhibition/event that took place for the first time in Bryant Park, Manhattan. Work
in progress, more photographs, stronger and iconoclasts visuals, will be displayed
on this occasion.
The upcoming new music video. Always
a pleasure!!!
A huge‐sized table book, in a limited edition, is also on my agenda...
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