Curriculum

04/02/09

Biography

Cesare Bedognè was born in Sondrio (Italy) in 1968. He later moved to Pavia, where he graduated in Mathematics, with a Master’s Thesis on Minkowski Space-Time. During the course of his studies, he also deepened his interest for visual arts, with particular attention to cinema, and, “with the aim to capture the gaze in its pure state”, he devoted himself to photography, living for a considerable time in the Netherlands. He set up his first dark-room in Groningen and started working on the Innerscapes and Leaving series, concentrating on the strange moments when “interior and exterior, the eye and the things looked at, almost seem to dissolve one in another”. For the photographer the revelation of the world and of the inner self are but the same movement, they unveil in the same instant: “There may be one shot only, the necessary shot. The photograph is what remains - crystallization of psychic interior, precipitated into gelatin silver”.
Whilst Innerscapes portrays the spiritual resonance of images, the Leaving series finds its own thematic autonomy in focusing on what the author calls “the horizons of travelling”. This work deals thus with solitude, lightness and nostalgia - with the anxiety and the elation of the wanderer. The title, meant in the double sense of “departing” and “abandoning”, also alludes to that final departure which is Death.
After the loss of his Dutch girlfriend, Bedognè returned to the Italian Alps, where he started working on Broken Images in a deserted TB Sanatorium. There he recognised his “personal landscape of desolation, stilled in a frozen twilight: the mysterious bareness where the soul, alone, returns to itself”.
In the last few years the photographer also continued working on the former series Leaving and Innerscapes, travelling in Nepal, in the US and South America.
His work is currently represented by Dagmar Schmidla Gallery in Cologne and by Ververs Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery in Amsterdam.

(Text by Venanzio Del Mare, based on interviews with the photographer)



SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

1996 Ciasa Granda Museum, Stampa, Switzerland (solo exhibition)

2000 Takayama Fine Arts, Boston, USA

2002 Gallery International, Baltimore, USA

2004 Gallery Open Mind, Milano, Italy (solo exhibition)

2005 AAF, New York, USA (presented by Ch’i Contemporary Fine Arts)

2005 Ch’i Contemporary Fine Arts, New York, USA (solo exhibition)

2006 Photo New York, New York, USA (presented by Ch’i Contemporary Fine Arts)

2007 Curzon Soho, London, UK (solo exhibition)

2008 The Hague Museum of Photography, the Netherlands (on occasion of the “Empty Paradise” international group exhibition)

2009 Museum of Photography Cav. A. Sorlini, Brescia, Italy (solo exhibition)

2009 Ch’i Contemporary Fine Arts, New York, USA (“Ingenious Methodology“ group exhibition)

2009 Infantellina Contemporary, Berlin, Germany ( “Strange Things” group exhibition)

2009 Museum of Art and History of Sondrio, Italy (catalogued solo exhibition)

2009 Galerie Jullien, Genéve, Switzerland (solo exhibition)

2010 Galerie Art Prèsent, Paris, France (catalogued “Présages” exhibition)

2010 Infantellina Contemporary ("Italian Photography" group exhibition)

2010 Taormina Gallery (“Perception and Landscape”, International Contemporary Art Group Exhibition)

2010 Taormina Gallery (“Arte per Arte”, International Contemporary Art group exhibition organised in conjunction with the 56th edition of the "Taormina Film Fest")

2010 Dagmar Schmidla Gallery, Cologne, Germany ("Broken Images" solo exhibition)

2010 Ververs Gallery, Amsterdam, the Netherlands ("Silent Witness" group exhibition, on occasion of GRID 2010, the 4th International Photographic Biennale)

2010 ART FAIR 21 STAATENHAUS AMRHEIN PARK, KOELN (presented by Dagmar Schmidla Gallery)

2010 SONDERAUSSTELLUNG (Group Show, Dagmar Schmidla Gallery, Cologne)

Upcoming: “Omens” exhibition at Dagmar Schmidla Gallery (2012)


CONTACT INFORMATION:

cesare.bedogne@gmail.com

Mobile +39 392 5580932



BIOGRAFIA
Cesare Bedognè nasce a Sondrio nel 1968. Nel 1987 si trasferisce a Pavia, dove intraprende gli studi di Matematica, laureandosi con una tesi sullo Spazio-Tempo di Minkovski. Nel corso degli studi universitari approfondisce il suo interesse per le arti visive, con particolare attenzione al cinema, e – nell’intento di “cogliere lo sguardo allo stato puro” – finisce per dedicarsi interamente alla fotografia, vivendo a lungo in Olanda. Allestisce la sua prima camera oscura a Groningen ed inizia a lavorare alle serie Leaving e Innerscapes, concentrandosi sugli strani momenti quando “interno ed esterno, l’occhio e la cosa guardata, sembrano dissolversi l’uno nell’altro”. Per il fotografo la rivelazione di se stessi e del mondo si risolvono in uno stesso movimento, si svelano nel medesimo istante: “L’inquadratura non può essere che una, l’unica, necessaria. La fotografia è quello che rimane - cristallizzazione di interiorità psichica, precipitata nella gelatina d’argento”.
Mentre Innerscapes si concentra soprattutto sulla risonanza interiore delle immagini, Leaving si riferisce piuttosto agli orizzonti del viaggio - alla solitudine e alla nostalgia - alla leggerezza e all'ansia del viandante. Il titolo, inteso nel duplice senso di “partenza” e “abbandono”, allude anche a quella partenza definitiva che è la morte.
Dopo la perdita della sua compagna olandese, nel 1998 Cesare Bedognè torna in patria e incomincia a lavorare alla serie Broken Images in un sanatorio abbandonato delle Alpi, un tempo dedicato alla cura della tubercolosi, dove riconosce il suo “personale paesaggio di desolazione, congelato in un silenzioso crepuscolo: la misteriosa nudità dove l’anima, sola, ritorna a se stessa”.
Negli ultimi anni il fotografo, nel corso dei suoi viaggi in Nepal, New York e in America Latina, ha anche continuato a lavorare alle serie Leaving e Innerscapes.
Il suo lavoro è rappresentato attualmente dalla galleria Dagmar Schmidla a Colonia e da Ververs Modern Art Gallery ad Amsterdam.

(Testo di Venanzio Del Mare, basato su interviste e scritti del fotografo)