BOYS OF LIFE
Come, I'll take you in my eyes. A snapshot of Maurizio Fiorino
Interests: loneliness. This way started the dialogue with Maurizio Fiorino. Surfing the internet, one finds his website, his blog, his myspace, his videos; he reaches out to hundreds of lonely people. From the screen of a computer, to the heart of many. They see his message of beauty, and some of them answer. Some send their photos, and that's the first step of the journey to bring them to him. From nothing but a message online to the direct confrontation, face to face, and then the shot, which to the photographer is like an encounter with himself.
And for Maurizio even more so: the beginning photographer usually starts with subjects that won't embarrass him: buildings, landscapes, the city. Not Maurizio, he started with himself. Doing both the job of the model and the photographer.
He took more than ten-thousand self-portraits before he felt competent to take photos of another face. The display of the camera was like his mirror. Not just to see, but to meet and understand, to represent and to convey a message, like in the teatro dell'io, his self-evolution.
His most well-known self-portrait, himself wreathed in smoke is intensely hypnotic and maudit like Catherine Deneuve as a vampire in 'The Hunger', is funny because it was born of a really boring afternoon in Bologna. That image traveled the world on the web, and after on it was on the wall in a gallery in New York, shortly after it was purchased from a show in SoHo, after it returned to Italy via Crotonese newspaper, and still not tired it appeared last month in the pages of GQ.
Maurizio by Maurizio can be anything: crazy, reckless, aggressive, "maybe because shy people, in order to talk to the world, need to be scandalous or make a big clamor." like Pier Vittorio Tondlli, one of his inspiration said. And, Maurizio is all of this. In Crotone, he was audacious to a group of people who refuse to investigate all aspects of life. But, in New York if it's cold or he has to carry something heavy or if he has a stiff neck his mother worries for him over the telephone. In Crotone, maybe he caused a sensation dancing at the club, but in New York after riding a rollercoaster, he had to lay in bed all day with medicine because of his neck-trauma, "like an old man", he said, a modern version of Zeno Cosini.
If "photography" means writing with light, these photos tell a story. He calls them Boys of Life with efficient ingenuity and courage. Life, because they are part of his life. Some of them a lot, some of them less, some very little, and some for only the time of the camera flash.
No longer are his photos self-portraits. Now, they are as Rimbaud said, "Je est un autre".
Ten months ago, with the arrival of Maurizio in a second big city (the first one being Bologna), he saw the world from another point of view. He dove into the pond, like Narcissus, but he didn't drown, he was capable of staying afloat.
It is said that when you walk the streets of New York you feel alone, free, and with a new state of mind. There is a euphoria that can give you a strong motivation, or it can totally alienate you. You feel at home, because you are like everyone else: you come from another place and if you do something it's because you want to do it.
In the big apple you either you do what everyone else does, or you follow the magic of the city, or you follow yourself. Maurizio followed himself. He is alone, but he is not alone because the love of his family is always there. His father, Carlo, gave him his camera saying "Use it like a weapon." His father knows flesh and he knows blood, and he knows his own flesh and blood. Loved, and armed with his camera, the son went out to find himself just like a romantic hero, a kind of Young Werther from the Magna Grecia walking the unknown streets of Manhattan. When he lost his camera in Mcdonalds after he ate a hamburger (ironic destiny), he was off balance without the weight of his camera. I met him on the corner and he was unrecognizable, only a pizza could make him happy.
"Use it like a weapon," said his father, and it was the beginning of a great story. When his father said that it was ironic because he didn't know that in English that the verb 'shoot' can be used to describe the action of a gun or a camera. When Maurizio 'shoots' it's like a shot to the heart with the surprise of love at first sight.
The landscapes accompanying the boys lend a rythym to the images, like the blue of the sky, and the blue of the eyes of Ryan. And, like the train tracks and Peter's eyes. They leave a lasting impression that never goes away. Nobody smiles in the photos, but Maurizio smiles with his dimples.
These boys are so young, and he searched hard for their character. So, he shows these boys to us and we see the face, but also we discover the person within the mask of the skin. So he looks, but its not like voyerism. The boys are beautiful, but they are real because Maurizio is beautiful and real. His beauty is full of somber mystery, but is also ephemeral and can fly away.
A bite without remorse, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, from the earth and leaves of that park in New Jersey to the colors of the harvest in Calabria.
Francesca Magnani
Interests: loneliness. This way started the dialogue with Maurizio Fiorino. Surfing the internet, one finds his website, his blog, his myspace, his videos; he reaches out to hundreds of lonely people. From the screen of a computer, to the heart of many. They see his message of beauty, and some of them answer. Some send their photos, and that's the first step of the journey to bring them to him. From nothing but a message online to the direct confrontation, face to face, and then the shot, which to the photographer is like an encounter with himself.
And for Maurizio even more so: the beginning photographer usually starts with subjects that won't embarrass him: buildings, landscapes, the city. Not Maurizio, he started with himself. Doing both the job of the model and the photographer.
He took more than ten-thousand self-portraits before he felt competent to take photos of another face. The display of the camera was like his mirror. Not just to see, but to meet and understand, to represent and to convey a message, like in the teatro dell'io, his self-evolution.
His most well-known self-portrait, himself wreathed in smoke is intensely hypnotic and maudit like Catherine Deneuve as a vampire in 'The Hunger', is funny because it was born of a really boring afternoon in Bologna. That image traveled the world on the web, and after on it was on the wall in a gallery in New York, shortly after it was purchased from a show in SoHo, after it returned to Italy via Crotonese newspaper, and still not tired it appeared last month in the pages of GQ.
Maurizio by Maurizio can be anything: crazy, reckless, aggressive, "maybe because shy people, in order to talk to the world, need to be scandalous or make a big clamor." like Pier Vittorio Tondlli, one of his inspiration said. And, Maurizio is all of this. In Crotone, he was audacious to a group of people who refuse to investigate all aspects of life. But, in New York if it's cold or he has to carry something heavy or if he has a stiff neck his mother worries for him over the telephone. In Crotone, maybe he caused a sensation dancing at the club, but in New York after riding a rollercoaster, he had to lay in bed all day with medicine because of his neck-trauma, "like an old man", he said, a modern version of Zeno Cosini.
If "photography" means writing with light, these photos tell a story. He calls them Boys of Life with efficient ingenuity and courage. Life, because they are part of his life. Some of them a lot, some of them less, some very little, and some for only the time of the camera flash.
No longer are his photos self-portraits. Now, they are as Rimbaud said, "Je est un autre".
Ten months ago, with the arrival of Maurizio in a second big city (the first one being Bologna), he saw the world from another point of view. He dove into the pond, like Narcissus, but he didn't drown, he was capable of staying afloat.
It is said that when you walk the streets of New York you feel alone, free, and with a new state of mind. There is a euphoria that can give you a strong motivation, or it can totally alienate you. You feel at home, because you are like everyone else: you come from another place and if you do something it's because you want to do it.
In the big apple you either you do what everyone else does, or you follow the magic of the city, or you follow yourself. Maurizio followed himself. He is alone, but he is not alone because the love of his family is always there. His father, Carlo, gave him his camera saying "Use it like a weapon." His father knows flesh and he knows blood, and he knows his own flesh and blood. Loved, and armed with his camera, the son went out to find himself just like a romantic hero, a kind of Young Werther from the Magna Grecia walking the unknown streets of Manhattan. When he lost his camera in Mcdonalds after he ate a hamburger (ironic destiny), he was off balance without the weight of his camera. I met him on the corner and he was unrecognizable, only a pizza could make him happy.
"Use it like a weapon," said his father, and it was the beginning of a great story. When his father said that it was ironic because he didn't know that in English that the verb 'shoot' can be used to describe the action of a gun or a camera. When Maurizio 'shoots' it's like a shot to the heart with the surprise of love at first sight.
The landscapes accompanying the boys lend a rythym to the images, like the blue of the sky, and the blue of the eyes of Ryan. And, like the train tracks and Peter's eyes. They leave a lasting impression that never goes away. Nobody smiles in the photos, but Maurizio smiles with his dimples.
These boys are so young, and he searched hard for their character. So, he shows these boys to us and we see the face, but also we discover the person within the mask of the skin. So he looks, but its not like voyerism. The boys are beautiful, but they are real because Maurizio is beautiful and real. His beauty is full of somber mystery, but is also ephemeral and can fly away.
A bite without remorse, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, from the earth and leaves of that park in New Jersey to the colors of the harvest in Calabria.
Francesca Magnani
