NAPEX 91222

Napex 91222 Napoli Explosion

It is extraordinary how we are constantly referred back to the fireworks but just as consistently, we cannot believe it. We cannot believe it because the transformative effect of photography is such that all the claims of artists hostile to photography, even those who have used it and yet remained hostile: photography has its own imaginary realm, its own imaginary freedom, that is not even controlled by the photographer. The photographer can play with it, but he is like the ceramist, who doesn’t control the colors, cannot control the glaze of the ceramic. It is the baking that determines the density of the color. And baking is difficult to control. It is measurable but not controllable. And it is the same, I think, for these photographs. One almost feels like saying that photography, your photography, is an art of fire, like terracotta, like ceramics. Napoli Explosion

Sylvain Bellenger

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.

Mario Amura

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