The Automaton

Paolo Ventura
The Old Man from The Automaton

I can't even begin to tell you how much I love the work of Paolo Ventura. I was lucky enough to wander into the Hasted Kraeutler Gallery in Chelsea on my last trip to NYC. I saw Ventura's work in an art magazine not too long before the trip and thank goodness for glass windows, as I saw the work through the gallery window and headed inside.

The entire gallery was filled with a series of photographs telling the story of The Automaton of Venice. Each photograph is a snippet or a scene of the story. The photographs are enchanting and once you realize that isn't just a photograph of a man but of a handmade maquette, the photographs become even more engrossing. Ventura creates detailed scale model sets which he then photographs.

Check out more of his work

Working with imagined worlds as well as small ones is quite fascinating and many other fabulous artists today are working this way. Ventura was part of the exhibition: Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities
Definitely check the website out, it showcases all of the works in the exhibition. I am sure I'll cover some of the artists here in the future.

Winter

Paolo Ventura (Italian, b.1968)
Winter Stories #9
image: http://www.paoloventura.com/work/winter.html

By all appearances this image just looks like a photograph of a bookstore from the past. Looks can be wonderfully deceiving. The scene is actually a miniature set constructed, a diorama, and photographed by the artist. One of a series called "Winter Stories", this image serves as a scene from a story. The images are quiet and beautiful, “Winter Stories,” "referring literally, to the season depicted, but also, more figuratively, to the final season of one’s life. Ventura conceived of the photographs as representing the recollections of an old man as he looks back during his final moments" (Art in America, Nov. 2008, Jean Dykstra)