SEE THE SHOW ONLINE

Icebox Gallery presents:

Maurizio Marcato
An exhibition of photography “The alternative use of news papers”takes place in Minneapolis, Minnesota but it was created in Verona, Italy. This is an exhibition organized by ICEBOX Gallery. Italian photographer Maurizio Marcato exhibits his new images for the first time in the United States.

Opening 8 PM to Midnight on March 10th 2007

Show continues thru Saturday May 5th, 2007.
Complete exhibit can be viewed on the Icebox website!

The black and white images are elegant, carefully composed and dramatically lighted. Each image beautifully tells of another alternative use for newspaper. People read them to be informed about a current event, they search, they reference, and they shop for pets, antiques and apartments. The paper might entertain them with puzzles and funnies and make you laugh out loud, or the obituaries might make you cry.  After they served their intended purpose we toss them or choose to recycle them. Modern industrial recycling means paper is collected and ground up to tiny particles and remade in to cardboard or other useful materials.

Mairizio Marcato wants you to see how newspaper can be personally reused. The poetry happens from his photographic talent, the simplicity of this idea is presented in a remarkably beautiful way. Papers are not thrown away, they are revalued, and they become reborn and in so many useful ways. Unexpected is the fact that newspaper has been reused in a way that becomes the sole subject matter for this art project. When photographed as the main ingredient of his artwork, newspaper suddenly becomes “art” and Maurizio creates another wonderful reuse for this common item.

Maurizio’s new exhibit is dedicated to the alternative use of newspaper. “Made me think of the times of our grandparents where everything was recycled, where there was no “differentiated waste collection”, where there was no waste! Everything was recycled, even the small things. So I developed this theme – and made an exhibition - with a bit of romanticism and nostalgia, in black and white, with the “darkroom” in the computer which is a great leap ahead in photographic art, but which also makes one nostalgic for the smell of the fixing bath. The shots are still life with simple and balanced style that respect their search on content; and subject per subject they narrate the different uses of an object that seemed destined to be thrown away after having been used. A blessing is the fact that even if we consume more information, we consume less newspaper (for now TVs and computers don’t get thrown away after they’re used). But who can do without the pleasure of reading a newspaper? However, don’t forget these photographs, they are just “small things” but also great generators of ideas, beware of consumerism!” Maurizio Marcato