Press release – Cosmo Laera: “With no weight on the heart” (curated by Giovanna Calvenzi)

November 18th – January 9th, 2016

Galleria Monopoli introduces solo show of Cosmo Laera.
The journey begins with the image of a magnificent colonnade. It does not matter knowing where it is. In the middle of the composition an observer scrutinizes, “exercising the sight”, as they say in the photography jargon.
Appearances aside, Cosmo Laera betrays the lesson prescribed by the history of photography, adding the presence of a human being in order to measure the space: in his following images his “presences” perform the act of watching, they extend to the photographer – and thus to us- an invitation to value the amazing Italian listed by Laera.
Well-known landscapes, but also views with no past, ennobled by the new photographical interpretation. One more time, it is not about geographical characteristics or giving a caption, it is the pending time of photography and its possibility of interpreting reality that represent an elegant transcription of a huge variety of places.
The actors of Cosmo Laera travel from North to South, from East to West, they cross the hours and observe, loyal presences that the photographer is able to guide as a proper director, they underline where do we have to direct our glance to. It is a declaration of intent, explicit and direct.
With cross references we observe the observer and the pleasure of contemplation redouble: a mutual exchange of attention to the landscape that now looks at the observer making us becoming voluntary witnesses of interconnecting tensions.
Cosmo Laera’s photography use a dry, respectful language that alters delicately the colour shades in order to give a univocal vision of something different in time and place.
The tiny presences involved in bigger landscapes are at the same time cameos and protagonists, they draw the author’s intention of inviting us to look, to make us become, watching to his works, “professional” observers of what surrounds us.
The journey has to be taken slowly, from one picture to the other, through a vision that leaves aestethycal juggling apart and has a few hi-angle shots.
Embracing the invitation in a note of reflexion of Italo Calvino: “Take life with lightness, with lightness that is not levity but is like planing on thing from the top, without having any burden on the earth”.

Giovanna Calvenzi
Cosmo Laera was born in Alberobello and began his relationship with photography when he was still quite young, starting his artistical and professional carreer in his homeland while developing projects and organizing exhibitions, national and international festivals. At the same time he kept working on his approach to photography focusing on The link between vision and the territory. His work can be seen both in Italian galleries and institutions and abroad. He is Professor of Photography at The Academy of fine Arts in Brera, Milan.