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.”