Suspended: The Book came out

Published by Gente di Fotografia EDIZIONI in September 2021 I'm glad to announce that my new book, Suspended, is now ready for shipping. You may order it here. Text by Franco Carlisi and Joel Meyerowitz.

Video by Domenico Fabiano

[...]Even when we are faced with an unfinished work of art, the greatness of the author defines it and makes it magnificent in itself: it is the Unfinished. In fact, it is precisely because it has not been concluded that the artist cloaks himself in legend and in a further story that embellishes his existence since the immortality of his genius will always be traced back to his mortal being. The genius is still among us - immortal -, but through that incompleteness we remember that it was like us – mortal. But an unfinished work of art tells us even more: it tells us about the creative process, the authorial gesture’s desire that wants to reach the essence, the genius’ vitality that struggles with the indolence of illness, the mystery of a mind who does not notice the created beauty and abandons it, a contradictory era, like all eras, which establishes the canons but does not recognize the masterpieces. No unfinished work of art is minor, precisely because it is more open than a finished work of art. […]

From the Introduction by Franco Carlisi

In Suspended there is a splendid and tragic feeling of emptiness, if those two could be mentioned in the same breath, and surreal as well. I like the scale shifts you are seeing with the cars, people, the houses, and the sun-blasted and burnt color of the landscapes and buildings. It shows me a kind of painful beauty in desolation, taking us beyond any hope of recovery. This is good work. Congratulations for staying so true.

From the Afterword by Joel Meyerowitz

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Embossed hardback with tipped-in image front and back
100 pages, 55 color plates
30 x 30 cm
Text in English and in Italian
ISBN: 978-88-906116-4-3
Publication date: September 2021
GENTE DI FOTOGRAFIA
EDIZIONI

Visioni: una mostra a Catania

Siamo un gruppo di 8 fotografi catanesi. Come tutti i fotografi abbiamo molte “Visioni”. Le abbiamo messe insieme in una mostra a Catania (ovviamente) alla Galleria “Spazio Meg”, Via Guglielmo Oberdan, 141, Catania. L’inaugurazione avrà luogo il 14 Dicembre alle ore 19:00.

La mostra sarà aperta al pubblico fino al 14 Gennaio 2024 – LUN-VEN 9:00 – 18:00 / SAB-DOM 16:00 – 19:00.

Assieme a me: Alberto Castro | Natale De Fino | Franco Ferro | Roberta Irullo | Massimo Privitera | Mario Valenti | Angelo Zzaven

“VISIONI” È UN VIAGGIO VISIVO CHE SPAZIA DALLE METROPOLI ALLE PROFONDITA’ DELLA NATURA, DALL’ARTE CONCETTUALE ALLE RIFLESSIONI SULLA DURATA DEL TEMPO. QUESTA ECLETTICA RACCOLTA DI FOTOGRAFIE TRASMETTE L’ESSENZA DELLA CREATIVITÀ UMANA E LE INTERCONNESSIONI TRA L’INDIVIDUO E IL MONDO CIRCOSTANTE. INVITA IL PUBBLICO A GUARDARE OLTRE L’APPARENZA E A SCOPRIRE LA BELLEZZA NELLE IMPERFEZIONI E NELLA DIVERSITA’. UNA SFIDA ALLA PERCEZIONE TRADIZIONALE, DIMOSTRANDO CHE ANCHE NELLE SITUAZIONI PIÙ INASPETTATE, È POSSIBILE TROVARE UN MONDO DI SIGNIFICATO E CONNESSIONE.

One night on the Volcano

It was an astonishing night, yesterday. In many years of living on Mount Etna I rarely saw such a powerful eruption,

I had to grab my camera and move up. From the distance I tried to reproduce the shot I took many years ago that has been published by National Geographic.

But the conditions were different and the resulting photos were not special.

Then I moved up and up, reaching some vantage points I knew well.

The most incredible but was the red color on the black sky.

Etna Eruption, 1 Dec 2023

Etna Eruption, 1 Dec 2023

Suspended: una Recensione di Francesco Carlomagno

«L’ambiente paga il prezzo più alto ma l’empietà di questa inefficienza colpisce anche il cittadino che si ritrova quotidianamente a subire lo scacco visivo che gli rammenta lo scempio prodotto. O, forse no. Come le migliaia di automobilisti che attraversano la rotonda di Giunone senza alzare lo sguardo verso i templi, innumerevoli altri spettatori indifferenti fingono che l’Italia sia l’angolo di paradiso in cui risiedono e abituano l’occhio alla bruttura di cui non si accorgono più» Così il prefatore ed editore Franco Carlisi. Proprio in questo sta l’importanza di questo libro di fotografie di Massimo Cristaldi, figlio del filosofo Rosario Vittorio. Egli ha la capacità di sostare, forse lui direbbe contemplare, di fronte a questi oggetti, belli o brutti che siano ma che hanno e trasmettono il senso della solitudine o dell’abbandono. Ti lasciano addosso un disagio. Ti creano indignazione e ribellione. Il senso critico della sua mente mi richiama il disagio esistenziale del padre, tormentato dall’essere «finito». Quindi non di paesaggi della mente parlerei ma di una educazione critica della mente. Il risultato è una denuncia e una protesta per questa realtà che ci circonda che porta con sé il senso della indifferenza, della trascuratezza e dell’abbandono, della miseria anche quando l’oggetto in sé è bello ma senza cura e senza rispetto. Le foto vengono offerte senza alcun commento, citando solo la città dove lo scatto è stato fatto. Suspended (o epoché, sospensione del giudizio per la fenomenologia). Non sono un esperto della fotografia ma il messaggio è arrivato come penso arrivi a tutti. Un cazzotto sullo stomaco. Però, l’indifferenza è prodotta dalla situazione «in cui tutti gli uomini diventano schiavi di un sistema la cui logica sfugge dalle loro mani, essi possono ritrovare la comunanza autentica nella lotta per il senso dell’essere» (R. V. Cristaldi, Saggi di filosofia del finito, Messina 1972, p.109). Deve venir fuori lo scatto per la dignità dell’uomo che non può rimanere passivo di fronte a tanto sfacelo. È un momento storico difficile ma ribellarsi è giusto, doveroso. E pensiamo anche alle tante sciagure che accadono come l’alluvione in Emilia-Romagna e le tante frane in questi ultimi anni dovute alla speculazione edilizia e al disboscamento, all’inquinamento. Alla responsabilità della società in generale e dell’uomo passivo. Un senso di gratitudine per l’Autore di questo testo, donato il 9 luglio 2023 (Massimo Cristaldi, Suspended, Palermo, 2021).

Francesco Carlomagno

The Metamorphosis of the Stars on Cities 12

I am one of the authors of “Cities 12,” with the work “The Metamorphosis of the Stars”, a volume curated by Angelo Cucchetto, Michele Di Donato, Fabiola Di Maggio, Attilio Lauria, and Sonia Pampuri.

You can purchase print copies of Cities for any country, buy the pack of all Cities PDFs from issue 1 to 12, and download the FREE PDF of Cities 12?!

Cities 12 authors: Yalda Moaiery, Massimo Cristaldi, Giuseppe Cardoni, Massimiliano Faralli, Eduardo Asenjo Matus, Mario Mencacci, Julie Hrudova, Salvatore Matarazzo, Aananda Antahleen, Francesco Verolino, Roberto di Patrizi.

VISIT the updated presentation section of CITIES at www.italianstreetphotography.com/cities and make your choice!

The excerpt of “Metamorphosis” alone is available for download here.

“Suspended,” the suspended time in Cristaldi’s solo photography exhibition

Monica Cartia writes a beautiful article about "Suspended" in "La Sicilia" on June 5, 2023.

There are places that become points of reference, even involuntarily, in our collective imagination. Non-places that exist to remind us of their existence. “Suspended” is the solo exhibition of photography by Massimo Cristaldi from Catania, who dedicates evocative shots to these sun-drenched places of our land. The images focus on indefinite, unrealized, and unfinished locations that captivate the eye with tenderness, surprise, and even anger and denunciation. The void, the absence that becomes present, becomes a life that never had the opportunity to breathe. As Sandro Iovine, a photography critic, writes: “Here, time is the protagonist, a suspended time, just like the suspended landscapes presented to us, where everything seems to recall traces of recent unfinished human passage. What we can see are places immersed in absence. Absence of care for what humans have done in the past, absence of a conclusion for projects started and never completed. Massimo Cristaldi captures a ‘time within,’ crystallizing the wounds of space in a continuous present, and proposing ‘delirious projections into the future.’ Through his images, he narrates an abused land that has been returning surreal visions for decades, to which our eyes have grown accustomed and have become desensitized.” Beauty requires awareness, denunciation, and a brighter future for a land that makes its light a treasure. “In front of Massimo Cristaldi’s images, we experience the same reactions as when faced with a reportage on human misery,” says critic Franco Carlisi. “His photographs engage us aesthetically, but Cristaldi seems to believe that this is not enough. He constantly forces us into a visual clash with the scandal of certain dishonesty. He fuels anger towards those who have allowed such devastation and resentment towards a State that seems to have blinders on.”

Suspended: Siracusa (Italy), Fototeca Siracusana, 10-28 June 2023

On Saturday, June 10th at 6:30 PM, the exhibition “Suspended” will open at Fototeca Siracusana in Syracuse. On display will be around fifteen prints, and the book will be available. I will be present at the vernissage.

Sandro Iovine, an esteemed photography critic, writes about “Suspended”:

When you think about Sicily, the first images that come to mind, depending on the prejudice you may have, are those of a sunny land with a splendid sea, of women veiled in black who wander around in towns where conspiracy of silence is incarnated by men with flat caps on their heads and shotguns on their shoulders. None of this (fortunately) appears in Massimo Cristaldi’s images. Here the protagonist is time, a suspended time, as suspended are the landscapes that Massimo photographed, where everything seems to recall vestiges of a recent, unfinished passage of man. What we can see are places immersed in absence. Absence of care for what man has done in the past, absence of a conclusion for works and construction project that have begun and never finished. It is a time that Massimo Cristaldi photographs and that does not exist, or rather an “interior time” that crystallises, in a continuous present, the wounds of space and proposes “delirious projections into the future”.

Sandro Iovine

“Suspended” is the vision of a photographer who aims to express the common unease felt by many Sicilians living in this “suspended” time, witnessing the impoverishment of their land and the resources of a heritage subject, unfortunately, to the neglect of time and human actions. Massimo Cristaldi utilizes photography to skillfully highlight the apathy and abuses that the author transforms into surreal and almost metaphysical visions, to which we have become accustomed, as well as the notion of accepting a “normalcy” that is far from normal. While not new, the attempts to awaken consciousness are by no means futile, as there is a need for them. The voices that call for a fairer destiny for this southern world must not remain silent, for they will never be enough.

Salvatore Zito

Free admission or by reservation on closing days.