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Passing Through - London 2011
It is a series of prints and a film, an urban immersion in the non-spaces. 2010–2011
Passing Through # London 2011
This series of colour woodcuts and the film are the final outcome of an experimental project made during a residency at East London Printmakers, in London, winter 2010-2011.
The first exhibitions of the project were curated by Hayato Fujioka:March-April 2011. The Crypth, St. Brides Church, London, UK November 2011. Galleria Ostrakon, Milan
A Pilgrim Armed with Chisels and an iPhoneby Hayato Fujioka (from the text of the catalogue)
Setting foot in London, travellers are gradually absorbed in a city veiled in mystery. Passing Through # London showcasing the latest woodcuts by Umberto Giovannini began its development in January 2011. The opportunity to stay in London enabled Umberto to combine his perception of London with his ongoing exploration of woodcut, which he has developed for the last twenty years. In a metropolitan area such as London, where things can change in every minute, Umberto found a desire to transform a temporal perception into an eternal documentation. Umberto, the pilgrim in London, was armed with a small camera attached to a high-performance mobile phone and a set of chisels. Arriving in London without a defined concept, he kept photographing views of London that appealed to him using his mobile phone.
Although the versatility of the camera was able to capture the rapid comings and goings in London, woodcut was then employed to engrave a complex psychology and the intrigue of the city. Through a dialogue with an image and the particular grain of the wood that he handled, Umberto produced a harmony between his perception, sensation, colours, wood and nature with which viewers are able to engage.
Most of the images in the series were captured at night, which fiercely contrast with the sunshine depicted in Millennium Bridge. Because of the invention of artificial light during the early modernisation of London, vice and crime were kept away in darkness. The appearance of this new light was very much praised by the local people who enjoyed the magical illumination of the evening when lamplighters torched tin vessels one by one. At the same time in the 18th and 19th Century, many people were fascinated by the events that they encountered in London at night. It is symbolically exemplified in the work of William Hogarth and Charles Dickens. They observed a city and people of the night and discovered the authentic nature of London.
Whilst, today, we cannot encounter as much vibration as people used to experience in the 19th Century, Umberto’s prints, depicting the London night, somehow arouse a sensation of fear, sacredness and tension, buried under modern urbanisation. Most of his prints are made from pictures taken either at night or in the early evening. Each print illustrates a different aspect of modern London’s night, filled with various kinds of light. Actually, Umberto found himself more comfortable at night than in daytime London, possibly because the abstraction of night time, gives space for the imagination.
In contrast, Millennium Bridge shows an image of the day, which is figurative and more comprehensive in terms of perceiving an event. However, such a photographical image, shaped by a linear distinction of lights and shadows, does not allow a further imagination into something behind the work. Instead, it metaphysically forces you to accept the being of the location.
The comparison of shadows and light is perceived very differently in the East and West. In Eastern countries such as Japan the influence of Buddhism has developed an attitude to look at the reality in shadows. A theory of shadows was raised by Junichiro Tanizaki’s influential book, “In Praise of Shadows.” People’s preference for simplicity created in shadows relates to their eulogy on the void in Buddhism. Though the old masters such as Hokusai or Hiroshige did not tend to experiment with the abstraction of the night, the aesthetic of simplicity perceived in their works was developed through people’s traditional habit of discovering beauty in darkness. This contrasts with the Western Christian worship of God as a methodology to reach the glorious light of the heaven.
In addition, Umberto’s insight to look at close-up details of a lit surface creates a melodious rhythm in the exhibition. While some of the prints do not easily denote what he framed, the fragmental image inspires a sense of his physicality working, as seen in Passing Through # London. Each of the eleven temporalities that Umberto has chosen reveals a completely different sensation of the city. The depth of expression in each work is beautifully achieved through the variation of technique and the choice of wood. Actually, capturing the temporality of the city has its origin in the old Japanese ukiyo-e (Floating World), which feature a quality specific to woodcut, to be able to consolidate a sensation of the temporality of our life.
No matter how figurative or abstract Umberto’s prints are, this exhibition allows viewers a freedom of interpretation. Passing through eleven prints, the experience of seeing arouses a universal dialogue through each location, light, history, people and grain of wood. Through a fusion of the latest technology and traditional techniques Umberto has invented a dynamic stillness. This great feat shall certainly contribute to the further development of the potential of woodcut and indeed contemporary printmaking.