PATRIZIA MUSSA
ARTIST STATEMENT
THEATRICALITY. Architecture for Wonder is a journey through the historic theatres and the most scenographic architecture dotting the peninsula, from Venice and Turin to Palermo, via Milan, Florence, Rome, and Naples, through Patrizia Mussa’s photographs. A real journey into history and geography and at the same time a journey into the imaginary. This research, however, is not limited to the ‘portrait’ of these architectures: once each individual ‘view’ is fixed, from strictly central perspectives, the artist applies herself to them with painstaking patience with pastel pencils and watercolours and retraces the warping of the container and every detail.
Under the action of her pictorial hand, the photographs emancipate themselves from their mechanical nature and become hybrid bodies whose imperceptible essence is placed on the edge of that threshold that separates, as Walter Benjamin wants, the work endowed with its own aura from the mechanised and potentially repeatable work identical to infinity. In their absolute uniqueness, each photograph is first printed and then painted in an almost imperceptible but significant way in order to transform the pictures of a given reality into a subtly dreamlike vision, humbly grandiose and capable of exalting with alienating force the truth of places that are like oases of the collective imagination of our civilization and that come to us, intact or not, to contribute to the constitution of our cultural DNA.
*Photopastel Theaters - series dedicated to Italian Theatres, which, reinterpreted and revisited with skilful hand-colouring, become imaginary places where dreams and poetry coexist. On display at the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation in Turin in 2019, in Paris in 2020 at Galerie XII and in Pietrasanta with Paola Sosio Contemporary Art and Claudio Composti, Museo Ettore Fico in Turin in 2022.
WarlessTheatres - dedicated to the landscapes of Afghanistan, Yemen and Ethiopia. Project selected and exhibited for the Biennale du Monde Arabe Contemporaine, Paris 2019 Institut du Monde Arabe / La Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris. Le Temple du Soleil - a particular look at the architecture of the utopia of the philosopher architect Jean Balladur, exhibited at Palazzo Morando in Milan, at Montpellier-PierresVives project by Zaha Hadid, at Villa Savoye-Le Corbusier in Poissy Paris, and at Wilmotte Gallery in Lichfield Studios, London.
Participates with Paola Sosio Contemporary Art in numerous photography and contemporary art fairs. Patrizia Mussa's works have been exhibited and are part of important museum collections, as well as being present in prestigious public and private collections in Europe, the United States and the Far East.
BIO
Patrizia Mussa lives and works between Turin and Paris. She graduated in Philosophy and specialised in Cultural Anthropology at the Sorbonne. She began working as a photographer with sports and geographical reportage. In Milan, in the 1970s, she worked in advertising as producer, cinematographer, and director of documentaries. Since 1985, she has lived in Turin, working as picture editor for Studio Livio and Pacific Press Service in Tokyo; she does photo shoots for important architecture and interior design magazines and publishing groups such as Condé Nast and Taschen. She is ADFrance contributor. Architectural, interior and landscape photography are the fundamental fields of her professional activity and research. She has worked on numerous projects, the most recent of which include: Theatricality.
Architecture for wonder.
The exhibition opens on December 6th at Palazzo Reale in Milan, It is curated by Antonio Calbi, promoted by Comune di Milano-Cultura, produced by Palazzo Reale and Studio Livio, with the support of Gemmo SpA. The exhibition will be held in Palermo at Zito Palace on 7th June. It will take place in Roma at S. Luca Academy in September 2024, and in December 2024 the exhibition will be in Vicenza at Thiene Palace. In 2025 Theatricality will be shown in Paris, L.A and Capri. Theatre Photopastel. It’s a research about Italian theatres. The artist reinterprets these places by colouring her pictures by hand. In this way the theatres become imaginary places where dreams and poetry live together.
On show at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin in 2019, in Paris in 2020 at Galerie XII, in Pietrasanta with Paola Sosio Contemporary Art and Claudio Composti and in Milan in 2022 at Other Size Gallery, curated by Claudio Composti; WarlessTheatres, dedicated to the landscapes of Afghanistan, Yemen, and Ethiopia, with images made when they were still accessible reserves of cultures and resources, now reinterpreted with new sequences and unprecedented handmade colours-project selected and exhibited for the Biennale du Monde Arabe Contemporain, Paris 2019 Institut du Monde Arabe / La Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; Le Temple du Soleil, a special look at the architecture of utopia by the philosopher-architect Jean Balladur, exhibited at Palazzo Morando in Milan, Montpellier-PierresVives, a project by Zaha Hadid, Villa Savoye-Le Corbusier in Poissy Paris, and Wilmotte Gallery in Lichfield Studios in London. Patrizia Mussa takes part in important Photography and Art Fairs with Paola Sosio Contemporary Art. Mussa’s pieces of art have been exhibited and are part of important museum collections as well as being in prestigious public and private collections in Europe, the United States and the Far East.
Teatralità, Teatro Farnese, Parma, Italia, 2018
Photograph, fine art pigment print on cotton paper with hand coloring
Courtesy of the artist
THEATRICALITY. Architecture for Wonder is a journey through the historic theatres and the
most scenographic architecture dotting the peninsula, from Venice and Turin to Palermo, via
Milan, Florence, Rome, and Naples, through Patrizia Mussa’s photographs. A real journey into
history and geography and at the same time a journey into the imaginary.
This research, however, is not limited to the ‘portrait’ of these architectures: once each
individual ‘view’ is fixed, from strictly central perspectives, the artist applies herself to them with
painstaking patience with pastel pencils and watercolours and retraces the warping of the
container and every detail.
Under the action of her pictorial hand, the photographs emancipate themselves from their
mechanical nature and become hybrid bodies whose imperceptible essence is placed on the
edge of that threshold that separates, as Walter Benjamin wants, the work endowed with its
own aura from the mechanized and potentially repeatable work identical to infinity.
In their absolute uniqueness, each photograph is first printed and then painted in an almost
imperceptible but significant way in order to transform the pictures of a given reality into a subtly
dreamlike vision, humbly grandiose and capable of exalting with alienating force the truth of
places that are like oases of the collective imagination of our civilization and that come to us,
intact or not, to contribute to the constitution of our cultural DNA.