Claudio Alessandri

„I can’t just take pictures. I always need an idea.” An endless stream of ideas passes through Claudio Alessandri´s head. If an idea is ripe and tempting, he presses the shutter release, in his head. When Alessandri then arranges the lighting, inserts the film, places the model where he wants it - a steel worker, a nude woman, or perhaps a dead bird - then this is less a preparation for the taking of a picture, but rather already part of its development.

In English one takes photos, in German one makes them. Claudio Alessandri is not a photographer who takes them but one who makes them.

Like ultrasound pictures, the thousands and thousands of sketches executed by this talented draughtsman tell of his yet-unborn photographs; we find that series of dozens or even hundreds of pictorial ideas are designed, their ideal technical equipment contemplated, the relevant focal length worked out, and even their layout and printing techniques decided upon before a single picture is taken. Or not taken. Many of the pictures that Claudio Alessini has already taken in his head will never appear on paper. Because the equipment necessary to take them is not available or too expensive, because the location cannot be reached, the time is yet not ripe.

„Improvising is always necessary because there will always be a compromise with respect to the technical execution of an idea. But improvising is not a concept for me, ever.” The ease, the relaxed atmosphere that marks so many of Alessandri´s portraits is partly the result of his almost obsessive planning. Thanks to his perfect preparations Alessandri can afford to concentrate on his models, most of which are amateurs. "My greatest satisfaction is when the people are absolutely comfortable while I get exactly what I want.“

Alessandri´s subjects are wide-ranging, it is almost impossible to know him by his topics. Series of brightly coloured pictures follow classical black-and-white portraits of nude women who do not require colour to exude warmth. Unposed steel-workers and firemen, dancers, theatre people and Hollywood icons. Projections between Man Ray and Op-Art, still lives with brightly coloured, iridescent, dead songbirds on original scores of famous composers.

All his pictures are in series, but he is no serial artist. This is bad business for an artist if one tries to create a "trademark". For Alessandri, however, it is the inevitable result of his desire to take pictures in the first place. "Photography for me is a way to discover“. And this means it always has to be something novel, something still awaiting discovery. „I can’t take one picture twice.“ This, of course, would be a waste of time with so many still-unexposed pictures for which the shutter release in his head has already been pressed.

Claudio Alessandri was born in Ferrara in 1955. Since 1988 he has lived and worked in Vienna. He saw architecture in Milan, Federico Fellini and Ettore Scola working in the Cinecittá, and learned to take photographs as the assistant of Roberto Carra, Barry Lategan, Norman Parkinson, Harry Peccinotti, Oliviero Toscani and Gian Paolo Barbieri. After this he worked as a freelance photographer in Milan and Paris.

He earns his money by (and despite) working for the advertising industry and magazines. He received numerous awards in Austria, Montreux and New York mostly for his commissioned work. His artistic photographs have so far mainly been shown in group exhibitions in Berlin, Innsbruck and Salzburg. The present exhibition is his first monograph show since 1996, then held in McCann Espace in Paris. His book (woman)* was published in 2001 in English and German (Editione Stemmle, Zurich-New York), and 2002 in China.