Rossella Bellusci has been visible several times of late, notably at the Georges Pompidou Centre, the French Bibliothèque, and lastly, at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie as part of the « Extrêmes » collective.
Since her debut in 1980, Rossella Bellusci's work has been centered on the confrontation between the body (first self-portraits, then male nudes), objects (still lives, in the latter half of the 1980's), and light: A tormented confrontation which bit by bit leaves the space to all-powefullness of light itself.
In fact, since 1990, the artist has created photographs that impose an almost absolute whiteness on the Spectator. One squints before them, searching for the subject, dazzled by the halo of light that invades them. It is the sovereign whiteness of an intense and vibrant light, a light which, like that of the artist's native Calabria, devours the objects and people it is supposed to illuminate.
Implacable and masterly, these images impose a test upon the gaze that the object painfully shies away from. Here light, the medium of all photography, is the instrument of the near destruction of the image. In fact, the whiteness has swallowed the ensemble of colors, the diversity of shapes, the density of matter.
Overwhelming, the light somehow allows certain floating, unattached shapes to escape, like a concession granted to the viewer's gaze : For example, a human silhouette, the contour of an object, even the curve of a face. Amongst these apparitions, like shadows surging through the fog, the most solid are gray, the others are reduced to white traces, whiter even than the light which surrounds them, sharp as a shard of glass.
The Taïss Gallery's exhibition includes four series, the succession of which shows the drama at play between the object and the light, as well as the light's increasing power. In Fluorescenze (Fluorescence) (2008), it is the object that, accidentally blocking the light's path, forces it turn back on itself and begin to vibrate intensely. The Lignes-portraits (Line-Portraits) (1990) give a central place to light, its rays dazzzling the lens itself. Light becomes the obstacle itself. It is even more alive in Uomo diafano (Diaphonous Man) (2008), where a character is criss-crossed vertically and horizontally by light. Lastly, the Contro-forma (Counter-Form) (2009) series, making its debut at Taïss, shows the contours of a square : Placed very close to the lens, the light is at the height of its intensity and its blinding power.
In Bellusci's work, light is a unique material, at once impalpable and irreducible. These photographs touch on the strangeness of reality to the extent that light, the means of vision, reveals the full extent of its role: It is the source of life and death, allowing shapes to vacillate on the thin line between evaporation and birth. These images impose a triple reading. This is first of all physical: They reveal, by exalting and exacerbating it, the central role of light in the photographic process and in vision. It is also psychological: One perceives the drama at play between light and the regard- the gaze weakens in face of the light, or holds on, according as it pleases an interpretation and a sense to the object, devouring it or granting it life. Finally, one would like to see a philosophical or metaphorical sense in it: This light, like that which bathes the Platonic « Ideals », is the scène where the enigma of being takes place. The gaze is free to decode it or to maintain it in the beauty of its mystery.
Anne Malherbe
Since her debut in 1980, Rossella Bellusci's work has been centered on the confrontation between the body (first self-portraits, then male nudes), objects (still lives, in the latter half of the 1980's), and light: A tormented confrontation which bit by bit leaves the space to all-powefullness of light itself.
In fact, since 1990, the artist has created photographs that impose an almost absolute whiteness on the Spectator. One squints before them, searching for the subject, dazzled by the halo of light that invades them. It is the sovereign whiteness of an intense and vibrant light, a light which, like that of the artist's native Calabria, devours the objects and people it is supposed to illuminate.
Implacable and masterly, these images impose a test upon the gaze that the object painfully shies away from. Here light, the medium of all photography, is the instrument of the near destruction of the image. In fact, the whiteness has swallowed the ensemble of colors, the diversity of shapes, the density of matter.
Overwhelming, the light somehow allows certain floating, unattached shapes to escape, like a concession granted to the viewer's gaze : For example, a human silhouette, the contour of an object, even the curve of a face. Amongst these apparitions, like shadows surging through the fog, the most solid are gray, the others are reduced to white traces, whiter even than the light which surrounds them, sharp as a shard of glass.
The Taïss Gallery's exhibition includes four series, the succession of which shows the drama at play between the object and the light, as well as the light's increasing power. In Fluorescenze (Fluorescence) (2008), it is the object that, accidentally blocking the light's path, forces it turn back on itself and begin to vibrate intensely. The Lignes-portraits (Line-Portraits) (1990) give a central place to light, its rays dazzzling the lens itself. Light becomes the obstacle itself. It is even more alive in Uomo diafano (Diaphonous Man) (2008), where a character is criss-crossed vertically and horizontally by light. Lastly, the Contro-forma (Counter-Form) (2009) series, making its debut at Taïss, shows the contours of a square : Placed very close to the lens, the light is at the height of its intensity and its blinding power.
In Bellusci's work, light is a unique material, at once impalpable and irreducible. These photographs touch on the strangeness of reality to the extent that light, the means of vision, reveals the full extent of its role: It is the source of life and death, allowing shapes to vacillate on the thin line between evaporation and birth. These images impose a triple reading. This is first of all physical: They reveal, by exalting and exacerbating it, the central role of light in the photographic process and in vision. It is also psychological: One perceives the drama at play between light and the regard- the gaze weakens in face of the light, or holds on, according as it pleases an interpretation and a sense to the object, devouring it or granting it life. Finally, one would like to see a philosophical or metaphorical sense in it: This light, like that which bathes the Platonic « Ideals », is the scène where the enigma of being takes place. The gaze is free to decode it or to maintain it in the beauty of its mystery.
Anne Malherbe
