FRANCO MARINAI

Time Frames
December 19, 2008 to February 4, 2009

he groups of prints that make up this exhibition reflect several attempts
of mine at capturing and representing time on a solid, concrete medium as a way to explore and report on reality. After years of making experimental Super8 and 16mm films - manipulating the emulsion as a surface to work on, to challenge the traditional mode of photographic representation and to draw the viewers’ attention towards film as an object - a few years ago I found that copper plate photogravure is a great technique to turn a photographic image into an object. In fact, a photogravure has a three-dimensional reality of its own that effectively replaces the reality of the photographic image on which it is based. So I became a printmaker and I began making copper plates out of old films of mine: the photogravures with gouache paint derive from frames from “YIMER” and the others derive from “Mock Gravity”. Shortly thereafter I started making artist’s books. A set of six prints in this show is from "Rio Mio", a limited edition book conceived as a cinematic travelogue through Rio de Janeiro. The accordion book illustrates the dismantling of Sag Harbor's Hortonsphere in 2007. Another set of four prints consists of a montage of plates from the large, and heavy, limited edition book titled "Between The Corners Of My Bed", a dusk-to-dawn journey composed of over one hundred photogravures. Finally, the inkjet archival print of the marathon runners represents my newest attempt at portraying the uninterrupted flow of time - the fourth dimension – on a two-dimensional plane. The outcomes of this project, reminiscent of the chronophotographic work of EJ.Marey and the mental images of A. Naggar, will get more exposure in an exhibition at the Manhattan Graphics Center in March 2009.

Franco Marinai

Gallery Hours - Mon, Tues, Wed, Fri Evenings - 7pm – 10:30pm
Sat Afternoons - 1pm – 5pm and By Appointment
Call 212-673-0090 for informaton

"Sag Harbor Hortonsphere", 2007, copper plate
photogravure, 6"x6", edition of 12

Sag Harbor Big Blue Gas Ball Dismantled", 2007,
accordion book with 8 photogravures, 8"x8", edition of 36

"from Between the Corner of My Bed", 2008,
photogravure, 15"x12", edition of 5

"Spring Permutations from YIMER", 2006, photogravure with gouache,
19"x13", froma portfolio of 24 unique prints