Description
Napex 25360 Napoli Explosion
The history of colours is also the history of their associations. Colours are cultural constructions, even when they arise from the image of fireworks: blue, red, and white have never carried the same meaning across nations or historical periods. White, which in the twentieth century became the emblem of a claimed neutrality, has not always been neutral: it was the colour of nobility, the background on which coats of arms were engraved, the mourning of kings, the luxury of courts, and also purity. And when I see this white mingling with blue and red, I think of all the symbolic meanings the colour has borne in heraldry and banners through the centuries. But here there are no coats of arms, no narratives, no symbols. We are inside a pure explosion: white is no longer a pigment; it becomes light. Has white always been light? Is that truly how prehistoric painters used it on the walls of Lascaux? I do not think so. Nor do I believe that, at that stage of humanity, white, or any colour, could be linked to a concept, to an abstract idea. These meanings emerged later, shaped by the history of painting, fashion, culture, and their many symbolic languages. Napoli Explosion
Napoli Explosion
The window of my bedroom overlooked Mount Vesuvius, and every morning, with reverence, I whispered a good morning to it as one would address a slumbering person, afraid of awakening them. The volcano is a living presence for anyone living at its slopes. For over 12 years, on New Year's Eve, my team and I ascend Mount Faito, a mountain overlooking the Bay of Naples, to capture the extraordinary choreography of lights and colors produced by fireworks all around Vesuvius. Through this superstitious and propitiatory ritual, the people of Naples welcome the new year. The image of the black and silent silhouette of the volcano submerged by the cacophony of fireworks' colors seemed to me a representation that needed to be explored seriously and viewed from different perspectives.
Over the years, the project has evolved into an experimentation of new forms of writing with light, using a unique color palette provided by the hundreds of thousands of fireworks exploding simultaneously. Over time, Napoli Explosion has become a work in search of the feeling of light.
