Benedetta Donato
Eyedentikit
Seeing a new project by Giuseppe Mastromatteo means entering a microcosm that flows with evocations and artifices; within, a specific portion of the human body becomes both the surface and medium which exists autonomously and is there to be explored. This was true of his previous works such as Indepensense and Homogenic, and is even more evident in the brand new EYEDENTIKIT, in which the artist becomes the protagonist, and puts parts of himself into his musings on human identity. An extremely important part, namely the eyes and the gaze, which represent the essence, the site of creation for every photographer.
This work presents a series of portraits. The evolution of the portrait genre in photography has taught us that there’s a mutual relationship between the subject being photographed and the photographer; a sort of resemblance between the two participants on set. Often one can make out features of the artists themselves in the final image, as though a part of the latter were faithfully reproduced, like a visual testimony of their encounter with the other.
In Mastromatteo’s photography, that “as though” translates, through expert manipulation and a refined conceptual ability, into the tangible prospect of amplifying that resemblance, turning it into a perfect union between the subject being immortalized and the photographer.
This artist’s proven talent for combining technique, aesthetics and theory places us before a growing archive of images; the immediate result is one of identity theft, a continual removal of other people’s gazes, obsessively replaced with the photographer’s own eyes. In doing so, he offers a series of self-portraits, represented by the only portion of his being that he decides to reveal.
Far from being self-referential, this mechanism employed by the photographer becomes a device for making visible that which is truly pointless and superfluous: the staging of the human being, deluded that he or she is living his own life, implementing his own originality day after day. The self-image that we all believe we authentically show to the outside world in daily life, is removed and annulled by the predominance of a single, unfamiliar gaze which probes and unsettles, because it makes the process of recognition and resemblance to reality more tortuous than expected.
This artist’s action disrupts the individual nature of each subject, about which many questions remain open, with a single answer: our identities lie not in the image we present, but in that which others project onto us; and so we exist insofar as those eyes look at us; for as long as the camera or video camera are running and recording us.
Mastromatteo’s eyes, multiplied infinitely upon our own faces, invite us to leave behind the sphere of the appearance, so lacking in substance, and suggest that the essential things in life lie elsewhere.
Benedetta Donato
Eyedentikit
Eyedentikit è un progetto in corso iniziato nel 2017, in cui l’autore affronta una ricerca sull’identità.
Un casting di 500 persone, tra modelli professionisti e gente comune, ha preceduto la realizzazione dei 57 ritratti presentati in questa serie, cui ne seguiranno ulteriori con nuovi soggetti, per un lavoro che si articolerà in divenire. L’evoluzione del genere del ritratto in fotografia ci insegna che esiste una reciprocità tra il soggetto ripreso e il fotografo, e che è possibile rintracciare caratteristiche dell’artista stesso nell’immagine finale, come se una parte di quest’ultimo fosse riportata fedelmente, in qualità di testimonianza visiva dell’incontro con l’altro.
In questa produzione, l’esperienza ritrattistica vissuta dai due attori assume un nuovo significato, perché prevede un azzeramento totale della distanza e un’intrusione dell’autore nello sguardo dell’altro.
Mastromatteo procede sostituendo gli occhi di tutti i suoi soggetti con i propri, in un’operazione di privazione, che non si traduce con la prevaricazione del suo punto di vista sugli altri, ma riguarda un discorso più ampio e complesso sulla ricerca dell’identità. Le persone riprese diventano così replicanti, moltiplicazioni del fotografo, che guarda verso se stesso. Un atto coraggioso di fusione nell’altro; una messa in discussione continua, attuata mediante la moltitudine umana e diretta verso un unico autoritratto immaginifico, che sembra rivolgere, con certa insistenza, lo stesso monito ad abbandonare il proprio punto di vista, a guardare l’altro e a guardare se stessi, riappropriandosi di quell’atteggiamento autentico, indispensabile per capire a fondo chi siamo… Come se ogni volta, come se ogni sguardo fosse realmente il primo e per questo, riuscisse a mantenere intatta la capacità di destare perenne stupore rispetto a ciò che vediamo.