In the photography works of Denis Guzzo (b.1977 Vicenza, It) past and present play a significant role. Being an Italian, Guzzo feels the past of the country in his veins. The history of Italy going back to the Roman (Etruscan) period, the Renaissance or Baroque period, forms part of the DNA of Italians.
They feel linked with this past, the same as Dutch have a feeling for the achievements in the Dutch 17th century on subjects like trade, art and society. So it feels natural for Guzzo to investigate traces of the past that are still present in today’s life. His place, where he could find the best mixture of past and present, happened to be Eleusis near Athens in Greece.
The balance between the fading sites in a polluted world where we gain more and more efforts to get the world greener, and the visualization of this process is not there. We talk more, we promise more, we collect more money, but never really know what for. Images lack.
Guzzo’s photographs are these images. They show the subtle line between the greedy world and its fragile nature, between the bulldozers of today and the rocks of the past. He discovers with his camera the archeological meaning of Eleusis and at the same time the striking similarities between old Greek temples and details like steps, walls, gates and todays architecture. The old industrial plant nearby this site of Eleusian Mysteries is now in ruins and resembles the old temples. Not a place for spiritual meaning, but capital gain. But the threat is still there, for Titan the brick company wants to have it all.
Positions, the choice of the photographer for subjects like Eleusis, and also Almere (Flevopolder) an earlier series called Freedomland on the traces of this young area in Dutch polders. Here it is man-made nature instead of natural rocks and valleys. Man-made structures in new land taken from the sea, showing optimism for future developments. These sites, when time moves on, will eventually become past and forgotten. Luckily Guzzo has made a visual survey of today’s situation that will hold for many years.
Exhibition of the photographs to be seen from 14.3.2015-25.4.2015 | Van Kranendonk Gallery, Den Haag
