Some people think that if we ask the artist for the key to understand his world, we can only get further away from the truth. This is particularly true for Claudio Pollini and his works, his photo symbiosis which originates from free associations.

Technically, they are macrophotographs, which means enlargements of photos to the point where the picture itself dissolves, put on top of one another and the other way round in order to create something brand new.

Dredging the bottom of this new texture is a strong temptation for anyone who encounters it, but at the same time it is a great disillusion: once we think we understand the mystery of this creation, we are left alone with a sense of unfulfillment because our eyes cannot satisfy their desire of some steady points in the continuously changing signs and colours.

His most evocative associations result from the symbiosis of a technical mistake with the ever-changing thoughts of the artist: they consist in out of focus or over-exposed images of  earth, water and sky which mingle the texture of their matter and create ever-changing signs and landscapes. Pollini thus becomes demiurge of a microscopic nature, he gives it a new shape that pleases him, he plays with it and makes new associations to excite his own thoughts. A possibly human cell springs out from a stone, a lunar landscape from a mineral in artificial light; the profile of a bird can be found in the secret pistil of a pansy (reminding us of some Pascoli’s poetry) and a Burri like combustion originates from humble mould.

It lasts until a whim of the artist adds a new element and, with an almost scientific ability, transforms it in a caleidoscope of thoughts, accomplice of those who continue to watch. 

(Gioia Gardo)