From February 7 to April 7, 2024, Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice, in collaboration with San Polo Art Gallery, hosts the photographic installation THE RIVUS ALTUS CRONORAMA – IN 10 YEARS, from a photographic project by architect and photographer Max Farina, on the 4th floor.
The exhibition will continue at San Polo Art Gallery with the display of other works by the photographer.
60.557 fragments, over 500 hours of observation from 2013 to 2023, more than 16.000 people portrayed.
These are the numbers of the project that represents a true visual “attempt of exhaustion” of the most photographed, painted, and known Venetian panorama in the world: the view from the Rialto Bridge and the incessant flow of people who, in turn, observe it. In 10 years, the photographer recorded every change in the panorama, focusing on the individual fragmentation that makes up the landscape.
At Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice, the installation will be realized with 78 monitors, combining to form a multiplicity of images where the view is entrusted to variable and almost infinitely modifiable editing of the various separate pieces that compose a perfect and unstable, fascinating, and changing landscape: simultaneously night and day, dawn and sunset… We will witness a video installation with over 10,000 shots, similar to puzzles, where the images no longer capture a specific moment but become a perspective traced by the passage of time in becoming.
Six large-scale portraits of ordinary people, captured in black and white while pausing to admire the panorama from the famous sixteenth-century structure, will be exhibited on three walls of the event pavilion on the fourth floor. The location allows for a unique dialogue between the main subject (the panorama), the black and white shots of people observing it, and the panoramic terrace that offers an extraordinary view of the lagoon city and the same panorama.
In this research, Max Farina drew inspiration from the text of the French writer Georges Perec, “Tentative d’épuisement d’un lieu parisien” (Paris, 1975), in which the author explores a square in the City of Light from different points of view and at different times, noting every variation. In Rivus Altus, like Perec, Max Farina does not follow, investigate, or narrate. He lets the camera record what happens, even when nothing happens. He “shatters the stereotype of Venice” to propose a kind of “machine à voir” that invites us to see the Grand Canal as if through a magnifying glass scrutinizing its smallest details made of light and darkness, water and skies, buildings and boats, crowds, and silences…
THE CRONORAMA SERIES
Max Farina adopted a fragmented vision, creating a series of visual exhaustion photographic projects called Cronorama. For over ten years, through this unique practice and relentless visual surveillance, he observed cities while standing still in the same observation point. The Cronorama captures intricate details that often go unnoticed, revealing the hidden poetry in urban chaos. These time capsules preserve ever-evolving urban landscapes, offering a new perspective on the essence of each city.
Time transforms this work into an organic, never-finished piece that continues to enrich itself. Max Farina creates works in progress, adding new photographs through new viewpoints and using new techniques; this is how he makes his work a constant work in progress.
Max Farina is also developing the Cronorama project in New York with works from Times Square and Brooklyn, in his hometown Milan, photographing the cityscape from the Madonnina of the Duomo, in Paris, Los Angeles, and many other cities, always seeking new and iconic perspectives.
MAX FARINA’S BIOGRAPHY
Born in Milan in 1974, he graduated in architecture from the Polytechnic University of Milan. Since 1991, he has dedicated himself to reportage photography, architecture, and documenting the territory, collaborating both on commission and on personal artistic projects. Max Farina has always explored the visual impact of the passage of time on iconic, architectural, and landscape viewpoints.
In addition to his work as an architect and photographer, he founded the communication studio Farina ZeroZero in 2010. In 2014, with the photographic project “Nella Città,” he won the first prize of the “Periferie Possibili” competition organized by the Renzo Piano G124 group. In 2016, he organized the first solo exhibition of Rivus Altus at the Don Orione Artigianelli space, at the Zattere, during the 15th Architecture Biennale, receiving important recognition. In 2017, he began developing new Cronorama in some cities in Europe and the United States, such as Paris, London, Los Angeles, and New York. In 2018, in collaboration with the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano, he created a Cronorama from the Madonnina of Milan, with a total observation time of 120 hours. Since 2019, the “work in progress” Rivus Altus project has been permanently exhibited at the San Polo Art Gallery in Venice. Since 1997, he has exhibited in various galleries between Venice and Milan, participated in many international art fairs, and published catalogs and photographic essays.
