How to write about photography? How can we account for the power of an image, interpret its meaning, unravel its mystery? In a beautiful book published by Gallimard, the philosopher Emanuele Coccia and the photographer Paolo Roversi have chosen the epistolary genre to share their thoughts on the subject. A journey in the form of chromatic reminiscences which appears while the photographer is the subject of a very beautiful exhibition at the Palais Galliera, in Paris.
“Their dialogue takes us in many directions, but almost always revolves around a metaphysics of light, told like a fable. Over the course of the exchanges, photography becomes a ritual of domestication of the sun. writes in the foreword the author Chiara Bardelli-Nonino, specialist in photography. Because, for Paolo Roversi, known among others for his collaborations with fashion designers Yohji Yamamoto, Romeo Gigli and Rei Kawakubo, “we are all little employees of the Sun, simple scribes, our backs bent over our Rolleiflexes, busy copying its drawings”.
Literated and sensitive aesthetes, both Italian, Paolo Roversi and Emanuele Coccia are friends in the city and share a passion for fashion. They also speak out in the work against the“strange contempt” of which the latter is still a victim. A specialist in medieval theology, Emanuele Coccia branched off towards the study of the living world, and in particular plants, achieving great success both with critics and the public with his work Plant Life. A metaphysics of mixture (Shore, 2016). In 2022, he became the first philosopher to teach fashion at Harvard.
Astronomy, extraterrestrials and witchcraft
The letters published in the work, missives as poetic as they are didactic, are interspersed with photos signed Paolo Roversi. Photos with soft, sepia tones, dreamlike, captivating blacks and whites, with sometimes vaporous contours. “The images you take never seek to be current: they appear eternally contemporary, as if they had been taken this morning,” Emanuele Coccia writes to him. The photographer has always stood both at the heart of the fashion system and at a distance, far from ephemeral trends – his images are ageless.
This fascinating work also takes us on a journey through the history of photography. Throughout the pages, Paolo Roversi evokes Saul Leiter, Dorothea Lange, quotes Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, William Eggleston, shares anecdotes, instructs us on his working method. “Photography is too often described as theft” while “adds life to the world, it’s important to emphasize this generous aspect”. It is also about eternal life, the invisible, meditation, astronomy, extraterrestrials and even witchcraft – themes discussed in a friendly tone and which throw on those who are interested in them an extra layer of light.
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