Luca Campigotto
Gotham and Beyond represents Luca Campigotto’s first one-person show in the United States.
Using a large format camera, Campigotto depicts equally large subject matter, from the Manhattan skyline seen through a graffiti-splattered garage, to a somber mountainside in Lamayuru, Ladakh, India. Despite the large size of his color pigment prints, the viewer is drawn in to examine the scene at a paradoxically intricate level of detail, enhanced by the dazzling quality of light he achieves.
His cityscapes feature blurred lines of traffic recorded over long exposures, in bustling settings like Times Square, and yet a stillness and quietness pervades his work. His landscapes, on the other hand, are shot in barren desolate places that present a sense of immense scale that leaves the viewer in awe. Both approaches read as a modern interpretation of the Sublime 19th century Romantic landscape tradition. The exhibition features work taken in Argentina, India and Manhattan, between 2000 and 2012, including two eerie night views taken during Hurricane Sandy on the darkened streets of lower Manhattan.
Luca Campigotto was born in Venice in 1962, and divides his time between Milan and New York. Nine books of his work have been published, the most recent GOTHAM CITY, featuring pictures of New York, with an introduction by Marvin Heiferman. Campigotto has exhibited internationally, including three times at the Venice Biennale; the Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal; IVAM, Valencia; MAXXI, Rome; MOCA, Shanghai; and the Margulies Collection, Miami. His work will also be included in a new exhibition curated by William Ewing - Landmark: the Fields of Photography, at the Somerset House, Strand, in London, beginning March 28th.
