2016 2020 Exhibitions Portfolio Fabio Barile
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2016 — 2020 Exhibitions Portfolio Fabio Barile
On Earth — Imaging, Technology and the Natural World
Photography enables us to observe the world and the effects of our existence in it. It can be used to
FOAM, Amsterdam — 2020 document, eternalise and motivate events. Photography has also testified to the paradoxical rela-
Curated by Hinde Haest and Marcel Feil tionship between man, nature and technology. As we use contemporary technologies to document
and question our relationship with the natural world, we increasingly experience this world throu-
gh the very same technologies used.
On Earth – Imaging, Technology and the Natural World unites the work of 27 contemporary artists
who use innovative visual techniques to reflect on the evolving relationship between humans and
nature. Besides photography, the artists make use of installation, sculpture, in-game photography
and video. Their various visual approaches diverge and converge throughout the exhibition. These
artists show they both seek to explore and reunite our technological, socio-economical, spiritual
and political connection with the world.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Thomas Albdorf (1982), Jonathas de Andrade (1982), Jeremy Ayer (1986), Fabio Barile (1980),
Matthew Brandt (1982), Melanie Bonajo, (1978), Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács (1974 & 1973),
Raphaël Dallaporta (1980), Mark Dorf (1988), Lucas Foglia (1983), Noémie Goudal (1984), Mishka
Henner (1976), Femke Herregraven (1982), Benoît Jeannet (1991), Adam Jeppesen (1978), Anouk
Kruithof (1981), Mårten Lange (1984), Douglas Mandry (1989), Awoiska van der Molen (1972), Drew
Nikonowicz (1993), Mehrali Razaghmanesh (1983), Guillaume Simoneau (1978), Troika (1976 &
1977), Maya Watanabe (1983), Guido van der Werve (1977).
On Earth was curated by Foam and produced in collaboration with Les Rencontres d’Arles.
Installation view On Earth — Imaging, Technology and the Natural World FOAM, Amsterdam. 2020
Installation view On Earth — Imaging, Technology and the Natural World FOAM, Amsterdam. 2020
Installation view On Earth — Imaging, Technology and the Natural World FOAM, Amsterdam. 2020
On Earth — Imaging, Technology and the Natural World
50th edition of the Rencontres d’Arles — 2019
Curated by Hinde Haest and Marcel Feil
Installation view
On Earth — Imaging,
Technology and the
Natural World
50th edition of the
Rencontres d’Arles.
2019
Installation view
On Earth — Imaging,
Technology and the
Natural World
50th edition of the
Rencontres d’Arles.
2019
Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella — The shape of Time
The sense of time is the subject of the dialogue through images between Fabio Barile and Domingo
Centro Arti visive Pescheria — 2019 Milella. Both use photography to portray time. The measures are different: historical time is very
Curated by Alessandro Dandini de Sylva short compared to geological time, but both the artists transpose, reduce and compose images that
describe the shape of time.
The work of Domingo Milella, Indexing 2001/2016, features the main destinations of fifteen years
of research during which the author has col- lected images and signs of people and cultures vani-
shed, ancient enough to be forgotten or even not deciphered. Milella’s journey began in the outskir-
ts of Bari, the city where he grew up, and continued traveling from East to West, marking
a map in which the man, often physically absent, still leaves traces of his presence.
The work of Fabio Barile, An Investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolution
and restoration of land, is the analysis of the complex and intricate elements that characterize the
landscape we live in, through geological evidence, experimentation with photographic materials
and simulations of geological phenomena. His intent is to establish a dialogue with the deep history
of our planet that, eroded, compressed and shaped, over billions of years of transformations, has
generated the illusory stability of the landscape we are used to today.
The spirit of time traveler is the imprint of the research of the two authors. The juxtaposition of
their photographs let us into a backward journey, a descent into the unknown, into the human’s
heart, from present to deep time.
In a letter addressed to an American colleague, Charles Darwin declared that thinking of the evolu-
tion of the eye made him shiver. The author of the Origin of Species used this rhetorical tool to in-
troduce readers to the concept of evolution, a natural process that surpasses our imagination by its
breadth, ubiquity and (in most cases) reme slowness. No one observing a landscape in the country-
side can get an idea of the evo- lution in progress, just like no one, looking at the sky full of stars,
can get an idea of the size of the entire galaxy. It is therefore right to expect some shiver.
Installation view Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella The shape of Time Centro Arti visive Pescheria, Pesaro. 2019
Installation view Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella The shape of Time Centro Arti visive Pescheria, Pesaro. 2019
Installation view Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella The shape of Time Centro Arti visive Pescheria, Pesaro. 2019
Installation view Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella The shape of Time Centro Arti visive Pescheria, Pesaro. 2019
Installation view Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella The shape of Time Centro Arti visive Pescheria, Pesaro. 2019
Installation view Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella The shape of Time Centro Arti visive Pescheria, Pesaro. 2019
Installation view Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella The shape of Time Centro Arti visive Pescheria, Pesaro. 2019
Installation view Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella The shape of Time Centro Arti visive Pescheria, Pesaro. 2019
MAPS|SPAM Prototype #1
Società Geografica Italiana,
From the observation of the anatomy of living
Villa Celimontana, Rome — 2018 The space of possibilities is constituted by the
beings, which allows us to reconstruct the tree
patterns of neural activity that are possible gi-
Curated by Alessandra Arancio ven the structure of one’s brain architecture (or of life, I moved towards an imaginary spa-
connectoma). As a whole, the latter determines ce, with suggestions related to the observable
the possible patterns that may exist within it. universe, associated with instruments used by
In other words, it contains the matrix of all the navigators to orientate in their journeys and a
perceptions / ideas / behaviors we are able to series of representations of landscapes realized
have. both inside and outside my home, to show the
Beau Lotto, Deviate potential of an exploration that is always possi-
ble, without preordained boundaries.
What links the Museum of Comparative The represented space thus takes shape from
Anatomy of La Sapienza to the concept of map? the relationships that are created and not from
Mapping is a process intrinsic to human thou- the individual images, giving the possibility
ght. Measuring reality, creating relationships to the observer of the work to draw their own
between its elements, allows us to stay in the internal narrative.
world, we also do it for unattainable places, like
the stars. The maps, as well as being a valid tool
for territorial positioning, are also a powerful
generator of imagination, we have a beautiful
evocation in L’isola di Arturo by Elsa Morante.
When we look at a map, without being in the
represented place, our imagination is activated
with sensations that act as connectors between
the lines drawn on that map and our experience
of the world.
So, I wanted to try, using as a propeller a map
of the Milky Way, a process of localization and
branching of my conception of the world.
The work created specifically for the exhibition
at the Italian Geographic Society is an attempt
to give shape, through photographic practice, to
my space of the possible. Using a large contact
sheet, they are returned without a conscious
filter and, at the same time, with ever wider
connections mental associations dictated by
pure observance with the intent to comprehend,
meant at the root as CUM PREHENDERE, or to
take together, to grasp. In this way a wide range
of relations is activated between the elements
that make up this atlas of human perception.Installation view MAPS|SPAM Società Geografica Italiana, Rome 2018
Prototype #1 at MAPS|SPAM Società Geografica Italiana, Rome 2018
Observing the Earth
A dialogue beetween contemporary
photography and the historical archive of ICCD
Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, The juxtapositions between Fabio Barile’s pho- The exhibition Observing the Earth was therefo-
Rome — 2018 tographs and archival ones often force the most re a precious opportunity to trace the contours
such a central role in this process of inclusion in obvious field of assonances to favor that of of this story and to verify how a narrative
Curated by Benedetta Cestelli Guidi differences; they insist more on waste than on articulated over many times and on many looks
the ‘register’ of national heritage that it appears
to be always and still not underlined enough; continuity and / or compositional identity. can broaden the field of action of contemporary
the photographic archive of the ICCD is Calculating the interstitium of these design and at the same time restore sense and
In 2017 Fabio Barile began to compare his work therefore configured as a tank of litmus papers visible compositional divergences, critical issues depth of reading. criticism of the photographic
with the photograph preserved in the histori- to understand if, when, how and what has been emerged - the omissions but also the recurren- archive and the historical photographs preserved
cal archives of the Central Institute for catalog photographed and protected. ces - which document the tortuous path of the here.
and documentation; the exhibition Observe the In the preparation of the exhibition, some hi- recognition of the geological phenomenon as a
Earth documents the dialogue and intends to re- storical prints - different in format, technique cultural asset, and therefore of attention for the
turn some reflections born from this new phase and presentation of the image - were excavated purposes of conservation and protection.
of the photographic project to the exquisitely in the archive, which document geological con- A second element appeared even more
visual level. formations that are not identical but similar to significant. Given that the photographic archive
The archive photographs are displayed on the those photographed by Fabio Barile. is a polysemic reservoir in which the authorial
wall on two registers parallel to the main one, The verification and comparison has led to mul- dimension is neglected in favor of a plurality of
so as to tickle the visitor with the possibility of tiple results, broadening the perspectives of the often anonymous glances, there has been a persi-
dialogue between contemporary and historical. authorial project on the one hand and opening stence of a single ‘vision’ shared by
The only exception is the historical photographs new horizons for historical photography on the photographers operating at different geographic
documenting the spread of erratic boulders in other. One of the openings concerns the pos- latitudes and in distant times; this composi-
Lombardy, displayed on the notice board sibility of distinguishing between the ways of tional alignment of the photographic image is
alongside the experiments carried out by Fabio looking; the contrast between the activity of translated into the insistence in photographing
Barile through which this very particular looking / distraction and that of extraordinary geological phenomena, taken up
phenomenon of migration of large fragments of looking / observation is articulated in room 2 because of their monumentality and singularity
rocks is displayed. of the exhibition. Only by preparing to look / and transformed into further folkloric elements
observation are you then ready to get to the useful for strengthening identity processes on a
heart of the exhibition and understand the local scale. Geology therefore as an element of
thematic sections into which the exhibition in folklore and not as an instrument of knowledge
room 3 is divided, whose exhibition layout is of the terrain; to this fossilization of the gaze of
divided into four sections that document as the photographers in the long duration of a cen-
As is known, the historical photographic archive many common geological phenomenologies such tury (1870 - 1970 approx.) there are few excep-
of the ICCD preserves photographs of documen- as the erosion, dissolution, volcanism and tions that become precious indicators to outline
tation of Italian cultural heritage over the long sedimentation. specific projects aimed at restoring the morpho-
time of over a century (1895 - today). logy of the terrain even in our not far past.
Only gradually the landscape and its geological
conformations have been recognized as a
cultural asset (Bottai Law, 1939) albeit in the
sense of ‘natural beauty’. Photography has playedInstallation view Observing the Earth Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome. 2018
Installation view Observing the Earth Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome. 2018
Installation view Observing the Earth Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome. 2018
Installation view Observing the Earth Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome. 2018
An investigation of the laws observable in the As a juxtaposition to the noble, sombre images neers of modern science, chief among them, the
of ancient rock and landscape, Barile produced father of geology, James Hutton (1726-1797), who
composition, dissolution and restoration of land playful, decidedly lo-fi images of the scientific first perceived that the earth is alive with geolo-
Matèria — 2017 experiments he undertook that serve to round gic activity, as well as determining that the
out An Investigation. Earth is billions of years old. Glimpsing our
Highlighting the disparity between man’s pur- planet’s history in these primordial landscapes
Essay by Naomi Itami
suit of knowledge and Nature’s inherent per- inundates the imagination to the point of pa-
‘A few hundred years hence, in this same place, the history of photography. These photographs fection, the artist used darkroom and everyday ralysis. How can we conceptualise geologic time?
another traveller, as despairing as myself, will mourn are about looking as much as we should. James household materials, to replicate (on a smaller Numbers fail. One hundred thousand years or
the disappearance of what I might have seen, but Hutton’s book ‘Theory of the Earth’ was semi- scale) the physical forces and natural pheno- one hundred million years can’t be encompassed.
failed to see. I am subject to a double infirmity: I am nal to the project and the artist cites Timothy mena that occurred beneath the surface of the The landscape is the only evidential inscription
hurt by everything I see, and I constantly reproach O’Sullivan’s ‘Geological survey of the 40th pa- earth over the 4.5 billion years of its existence. of deep time— both the victim and the perpe-
myself for not looking as much as I should.’ rallel’ as a direct influence. Echoing early photo- Barile says the experiments became the key to trator of change. It is the immensity of time writ
Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Tristes Tropiques” graphy pioneers such as Blossfeldt, Le Gray and interpreting the landscape as a complex, hidden large, in a language we can decipher.
Bayard, Barile works on an unwieldy large for- system, transforming it into a form of research, A final word about photography as a natural
At first glance, Fabio Barile’s practice could be mat camera, evoking the arc of the photograph’s in the hopes of creating a vision that is not to be process that has its origins in the same ancient
said follow in the long tradition of Italian land- evolution, and linking photography to the by- received passively, but rather, “interrogated by earth: “The photographer deals in impressions that
scape photography which includes practitioners gone days of exploration. In an age where every our gaze”. The analogue models do indeed expli- are enabled by the apparatus of the camera, chemi-
such as Luigi Ghirri, Guido Guidi, and Gabriele mountain has been google- mapped and every cate processes like the formation of stalactites cals, plate and light. Remarkably, this concept of
Basilico. On closer inspection, however, the ima- island breached, Barile suggests that the only and differential erosion using everything from impressions mirrors another natural process, namely,
ges in An Investigation hew to a tight conceptual journey remaining is inside the image itself. crackers to Ikea furniture, but mostly serve as that of fossilization. If fossilization is an ancient
framework that belie their simplicity, asking And indeed, a slow reading of the photographs an attempt to stretch the viewer’s grasp of deep impression of softer organisms onto harder geological
deeper questions about the nature of Time and elicits what Romain Rolland called in a letter time. In so doing, Barile invites us into a mor- forms, photography is its modern, mediated equiva-
geologic time, questions whose to Sigmund Freud in 1927, an oceanic feeling. dantly funny, quasi-pathetic time machine of his lent. It is the impression of gradations of light and
philosophical implications underpin scienti- Textures and striations of uneven planes in the own making, to travel to a time before humanity shadow onto stone, metallic, or glass surfaces—them-
fic endeavor, human perception, and the unk- rocks and landscapes provide clues as to how existed and to question what will be left when selves the elder products of geological forces. This
nowable forces of creative destruction at work and when these ancient formations came to be. we cease to exist. new technology is written back into the earth’s deep
in Nature and within the artist himself. They also yield a sensual appreciation of Time’s Knowing that images of nature can never be history. The landscape crosses over to the order of the
The works are tethered to their titles: geological inexorable march. As all images tend toward dis- separated from nature, Barile accepts that the photograph, and vice versa; each an impression, each
descriptions and accounts of the experiments solution (digital photographs pixelate, paintings world has been exhausted by representations of a fossil.”1
Barile undertook. Whether admired for their reveal brush strokes) a haptic visuality is elicited itself. The natural world has become a simula- Barile’s work takes us on a temporally dizzying
grandeur, or viewed as documents, the material from the viewer. The viewer’s gaze travels across crum, manipulated for the purposes of revealing journey through deep time not merely throu-
alludes to the binary relationship between scien- these images like a caress. The eyes fastening to aesthetics lodged within ‘objective’ representa- gh the myriad geographical forms of his native
ce and art, and the leaps made by artists and them as though organs of touch. Barile’s invi- tion. The artist’s use of geological descriptions land, but through the language of the photo-
scientists toward one other, in the belief that tation is most successful here, as it invites con- as image titles, urges the viewer to consider far graphic medium itself.
startling connections are possible. templation of the infinite rather than pulling more than the science behind the geological
The ambitious scope of the work produces a us down the narrow path of a private narrati- structures. The large format prints, products of
surprisingly internal travelogue of cosmic di- ve. After all, glacial formations are not going Barile’s obsessive gaze, are windows which give
mension. anywhere soon. onto both a distant past and a presumptive fu-
Drawing from the realms of geography, physics, ture with geologic time as the connective tissue.
chemistry, and biology, An Investigation bor- Like a Renaissance artist, Barile considers art to 1 Architecture in the anthropocene:
rows from the multifarious approaches of geolo- be an instrument for understanding the univer- Encounters among Design, Deep time, Science and Philo-
se, a view which implies reverence for the pio- sophy : Episodes from a history of scalelessness: William Ja-
gical observation and data collection and from rome Harrison and Geologica Photography. Adam BobbetteInstallation view An investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolu- tion and restoration of land Matèria, Rome. 2017
Installation view An investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolu- tion and restoration of land Matèria, Rome. 2017
Installation view An investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolu- tion and restoration of land Matèria, Rome. 2017
Installation view An investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolu- tion and restoration of land Matèria, Rome. 2017
Installation view An investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolu- tion and restoration of land Matèria, Rome. 2017
Homage to James Hutton
Homage to James Hutton, focuses on the aftermath of the earthquake that shook the Italian
Matèria — 2016 region of Abruzzo and the city of L’Aquila in 2009.
The series displays images of an antipodal nature to the substantial amount of photojournalistic
projects that followed the event. Barile applies a scientific detachment to the tragedy, finding
fertile ground for his research in the collaboration with the geologist Antonio Moretti,
whose technical diagrams, applied and layered onto Barile’s landscapes, encourage a meditative
exercise on the complexity of landscape, its evolution and formation.Installation view Homage to James Hutton Matèria, Rome. 2016
Installation view Homage to James Hutton Matèria, Rome. 2016
Installation view Homage to James Hutton Matèria, Rome. 2016
Fabio Barile
www.fabiobarile.com
info@fabiobarile.com
Graduating from FSM in Florence with a degree in photography in 2007. He started his photographic research in 2005 with
a project about coastal erosion, which affects 1500 km of Italian costline. The resulting project, “Among” aimed to investi-
gate natural processes of the landscape. Over the last few years Barile’s work has been driven by an interest in science in re-
lation to art - both conceived as tools for a better understanding of reality. His long-term project, “An Investigation of the
Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution and Restoration of Land,” examines the manner in which geomorpholo-
gy acts upon the land, serving as testimony to the vastness of geological time. The work employs photography to stimulate
a deeper understanding of the landscape and our connection with the natural environment.
“At first glance, Fabio Barile’s practice could be said to follow in the long tradition of Italian landscape photography which
includes practitioners such as Luigi Ghirri, Guido Guidi. On closer inspection, however, the images in
An Investigation hew to a tight conceptual framework that belie their simplicity, asking deeper questions about the nature
of Time, and geologic time questions whose philosophical implications underpin scientific endeavor, human perception,
and the unknowable forces of creative destruction at work in Nature”1. 1.Naomi Itami
Selected exhibitions
2020
Group exhibition, On Earth - Imaging, technology and the natural world
FOAM Museum, Amsterdam.
2019
Group exhibition, On Earth - Imaging, technology and the natural world
50th edition of the Rencontres d’Arles, in collaboration with FOAM Museum.
Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella - The shape of time
Centro Arti visive Pescheria, Pesaro, Italy
2018
Group exhibition at Villa Celimontana, MAPS|SPAM
Società Geografica Italiana, Villa Celimontana, Rome
Osservare la terra — a dialogue beetween contemporary photography and the historical archive of ICCD about pho-
tography as a tool for observation
ICCD — Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome, curated by Benedetta Cestelli Guidi
2017
An Investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolution and restoration of land,
Matèria, Rome
2015
Homage to James Hutton
Matèria, Rome
2014
Group exhibition at MAXXI, Open museum open city
MAXXI, Rome
Fabio Barile & Francesco Neri, Middle-Earth a journey inside Elica
Elica Showroom, Milan
2011
Group exhibition at Museo Pino Pascali, Giovane fotografia di ricerca in Puglia, Museo Pino Pascali
Polignano a Mare
Publications
Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella - The shape of time, Fondazione malaspina edition, 2019
Fabio Barile & Francesco Neri, Middle-Earth a journey inside Elica, 2014
Vision And Documents Box, Documentary Platform, 2010
Diary N° 0 - Things that do not happen, 3/3, 2009You can also read
