A noble residence near Lake Orta, chosen by the artist as her home, is explored through a research project that intertwines past and present stories.

Balancing documentary spirit and fiction, history and theatre, the photographic investigation — conceived as a collection of short stories — reveals Elena Franco’s attention to an architectural space where material presence and traces of its inhabitants merge, leaving subtle clues for interpretation.

In a process of exchange, the artist restores visibility to the work of painter Francesco Toni d’Auzate (1826–1894), who decorated and likely lived in the building, as well as to anonymous amateur photographers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whose images of the residence and its inhabitants become a source of inspiration.

Family photographs discovered in the attic intertwine with images suspended in an uncertain time, evocative of early twentieth-century visual language. These works form the first narrative, previously presented at MIA Photo Fair in Milan (2014) and other photography festivals, here displayed in an installation that recreates the atmosphere of the house through period frames and selected objects.

The second narrative follows the rediscovery of the forgotten painter — pursued by the artist almost like a reopened investigation — through archives, collections, churches and institutions, from the Novara region to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. This research is presented as an artist’s book in only three copies.

These brief visual stories — possible and imagined — are written in the present yet continuously refer back to the past, offering careful hypotheses about what may have been.

Elena Franco
Cauti racconti immaginari
Serie 1 e 2
Curated by Guido Piacentini
with a text by Gigliola Foschi

26 November 2016 > 11 February 2017
The exhibition, enriched by an unpublished chapter dedicated to Palazzo Ghiselli Vasselli — home of Studio Cenacchi — was extended until 11 February to allow visitors to experience the renewed installation

GALLERIA STUDIO CENACCHI
Via Santo Stefano 63
40125 Bologna

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Monday: by appointment
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