Lost and Found

Anonymous photographs 1940 - 1960

Fotografia anonima, 1960 ca. Foto © tutti diritti riservati. Courtesy Collezione Cristian Malisan

“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” Dorothea Lange

Photography is stillness. It is a thin slice of space and time, one that quietly locks fragments of reality and transcends them into an intimate sphere. As long as a photograph exists, the captured moment in time remains a reality. It is this symbiotic relationship of the real and the metaphysical that makes a photograph such a powerful artifact. One that has the ability to revive memories, evoke feelings and tell stories.

From its inception, the photographic medium served a dual purpose. On the one hand there are the functional and sometimes industrial uses of photography, in the press and visual reproduction, that have shaped modern culture. At the same time however, photography found its way into our everyday lives as a deeply personal means of creating mementos that capture the ordinary and preserve our own memories and feelings.

Mementos also help us overcome a fear tied to our own biological limitations. The fear of forgetting, of letting go memories and feelings that we are unable to relive. The ability that photography offers, to record fleeting moments of our everyday lives, alleviates this primal fear of forgetting and being forgotten. It makes these seemingly ordinary images precious beyond their inherent value as objects. They are part of our personal journey. Proof that, as cliché as this sounds, we were here.

Exhibition view at Arcipèlago gallery in Udine, Italy. Photography by ©MatteoLavazzaSeranto

The advent of the portable camera, first analogue and now digital, ushered photography into a new era. Through immediate access to image creation, photographs became our mementos of choice by means of binding together the meaning and physicality of an object, not just through function or information, but with memory and feelings. The family album as a treasured collection of tactile memories was born.

‘Lost and Found’ celebrates the 'art of the ordinary' and the importance of vernacular photography. Sifting through Cristian Malisan’s collection of photographic materials, found in markets and auctions over a period of many years, this collection of orphaned photographs creates a rather unusual mix of feelings. The sadness of one’s lost captured memories. The excitement of the discovery of a forgotten moment. The nostalgia of bygone times, awakening memories of our own past. This collection is as fascinating for its visual depictions of people and places, as for the feelings its photographs invoke to the viewer.

“Every amateur practice of photography with its out-of-date situations, its anonymous faces, is by nature 'familiar'. They are rarely 'beautiful' in the artistic sense of the term: yet they retain, they solicit more than any other lost object. I do not collect these images because I hope sooner or later to find the roll of Robert Capa’s D-Day. I rather feel it like a mission: I wish to save these moments from the oblivion of time. I think that if these negatives came up to me, it means that there isn’t any more relatives, friends or acquaintances to collect and preserve their inheritance." explains Cristian Malisan, co-curator of the exhibition.

Fotografia anonima, 1960 ca. Foto © tutti diritti riservati. Courtesy Collezione Cristian Malisan

Exhibition view at Arcipèlago gallery in Udine, Italy. Photography by ©MatteoLavazzaSeranto

Fotografia anonima, 1950 ca. Foto © tutti diritti riservati. Courtesy Collezione Cristian Malisan

Fotografia anonima, 1960 ca. Foto © tutti diritti riservati. Courtesy Collezione Cristian Malisan

Exhibition view at Arcipèlago gallery in Udine, Italy. Photography by ©MatteoLavazzaSeranto

This curated exhibition of anonymous images is presented for the first time at Arcipèlago gallery in Udine, Italy. The show brings together over fifty photographs taken between the '40s and the '60s – breathing life again into these lost moments, reviving and allowing them to be re-discovered.

As Charlotte Menard, co-curator of the exhibition and co-founder of Arcipèlago gallery says, “like the fantastic work that Lee Shulman has been doing for years with ‘The Anonymous Project’, the beauty resides in saving and reactivating these collective memories by inventing our own storytelling. Giving a new life to those who were about to be forgotten and to understand that one day, we will also be lost and perhaps, with a bit of luck, be found again.”

Fotografia anonima, 1950 ca. Foto © tutti diritti riservati Courtesy Collezione Cristian Malisan

Exhibition view at Arcipèlago gallery in Udine, Italy. Photography by ©MatteoLavazzaSeranto

These lives of others can be seen at Arcipèlago gallery - a hybrid new gallery space located inside the graphic studio Designwork in Udine, Italy. Its founders, Charlotte Ménard and Artemio Croatto created this space with one goal in mind – to introduce an intuitive, welcoming and spontaneous space where art can be appreciated freely and be accessible.

"Immersing yourself in the past lives of these strangers is a fascinating journey through the miracle of photography. These amateur and anonymous images create a vast collective memory, a universal kaleidoscope. The names, dates, and places are lost, but the permanence of the emotion resists.” Artemio Croatto, co-curator of the exhibition.

Cristian Malisan

Cristian Malisan studied architecture at IUAV in Venice and later graduated in Design at the same institute. From 2009 to 2016, he has been co-owner of Studio Barazzuol/Malisan. In 2016 he opened Studio Malisan in Udine, dealing with creative and artistic matters for various companies. In addition of being a strategic consultant, he also works with graphic design, product design, interior design, branding projects and creative projects for advertising.

studiomalisan.it

Charlotte Ménard

Charlotte Ménard worked for fifteen years in Paris in modern and contemporary art, collaborating with major publishing houses and artist studios. For seven years she was responsible for the exhibitions and collection at the Yves Klein Foundation and accompanied the artist’s artworks in the world’s largest museums. A year ago, she left Paris and its small bistros to settle in Udine and discover the liveliness of Friuli. With Francesca Petricich and Sonia Armellin she created the ceramic studio “Terra-e” and in June she will start a series of contemporary art exhibitions at the Canus Winery.

@galleria_arcipelago

Artemio Croatto

Visual communication, graphic design, corporate identity, artistic direction: these are the fields in which Artemio Croatto works and founded the studio Designwork in Udine in 2001. Among its clients are some of the most important brands of Italian and international design, well-known publishing houses and important cultural institutions. In 2014 he won the Compasso d'Oro ADI award for the artistic direction of the editorial project "Inventory" of the company Foscarini.

@galleria_arcipelago

Arcipèlago

Arcipèlago is a creative space located within the graphic studio Designwork in Udine, founded by Artemio Croatto and Charlotte Ménard and inaugurated in May 2021. A spontaneous space that celebrates creativity in all its forms and where art can be appreciated cheerfully. Defined "ephemeral" - Arcipèlago opens without any constraints of program. The events depend on the themes that the founders want to deepen, depending on what arouses their curiosity.

www.designwork.it