Benches of Livorno

A seminal work on the benches of Livorno is now available online. This well-thought selection shows more than two hundred photos taken in the last five years and has already been enthusiastically reviewed by one of the foremost authorities on the history of benches.

In a time when most people are interested in seats mainly as a metaphor for power, it is strange to find a person who has devised to describe the humus, the urban culture—if not the very heart of a city—by starting from the observation and “portraiture” of a city’s benches, both public and private.
Both the seriality of the multiples and the proposal of the single objects, the benches, in the photographs of this refined artist speak to us of his city, without ever renouncing a linear elegance and a touch of originality.
The many images, always evocative and revealing a rare sensibility, trace a semantically elaborate path, ranging from symbolic references and scientific cataloguing, towards a simplified syntax devoted to succinct fragments of a universal dailyness.
A declaration of love to Livorno which, we are quite certain, the photographer’s fellow citizens will be able to value and appreciate, but also a collection of shared themes that will affect attentive observers all around the globe.

(Stephen S. Hacksaw)

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