Earlier this summer, spent Brazilian artist Herbert Baglione some time in France where in collaboration with the Winterlong Galerie he created a series of installations in La Rochelle, Niort and other small villages around this area.
The new installations are part of Herbert Baglione’s ongoing 1000 shadows project which started last year in Parma, Italy and featuring ghost like figures that seem to spring from a past that keeps hunting the site. Stunning site-specific installations that the artist explains as follows:
I have been doing the shadows since 1999, during which period also began shooting with a Nikon FM10 analogic camera. At that time, my idea of exploring photography went beyond the simple registration and cataloging of my artwork, the intent was to enhance way of looking at it and interpreting the painting inserted in different environments.
But it took 15 years for the idea of the shadows to stop being a loose element in my extensive line of work for, and to turn into a project. In July 2013 I painted the shadows in an abandoned psychiatric hospital, in the town of Parma in Italy, and thus the project 1000 Shadows was born.The artistic interference with shadows changes according to the places where they are inserted, as well as the external interpretation from the image, and this is very interesting.
I have particular interest in finding places I have never worked before, such as a Garden from the seventeenth century, in the city of La Rochelle, ruins, a Church from the sixteenth century in the town of Celles Sur Belle and an underground hospital complex in Niort.
The “reading” of these places allows me to take the shadow to a unique path, which usually feeds and broadens the discussion because it brings light to the abandoned environment, and so I put the name of this series as “The path that the soul takes.” The idea for the name came from a conversation I had with my brother (William Baglione) about the places to do these installations. It is as if the soul is leaving an invisible trail on these places.
All images © Alex Giraud
Images via misturaurbana
Author: Fran
Founder and editor of Urbanite. Street Art lover who after the finishing her MA thesis on the Mexican and Norwegian muralist movement in the 1920-50s, developed a fascination for street art and graffiti that eventually led to collaborations with different art blogs, including the creation of this one.
