Description
Napex 410130 Napoli Explosion
I try to imagine what chances this image might have—this black triangle surrounded by vertical red lines, with a few traces of yellow—of entering the realm of abstraction, of becoming an image without any recognizable figure. The possibiities are almost nil, as the profile of Vesuvius has been one of the most reproduced and popular images in the world for over two and a half centuries. Vesuvius brings wonders and fears, which make each of us a child without answers but always full of images. The reverie that took hold of me—and that intensified as I walked through this exhibition—transforms those red trails rising straight into the sky, but whose heads bend, giving them the shape of a question mark, into many migratory pink flamingos that have taken on the colour of lava. It is the full beauty of fireworks and the imprint that Amura captures. He awakens our memories and our dreams and gives them the form of a sudden, luminous enchantment.
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.
