Celebrated Photographer Sandra Cattaneo Adorno Presents a Monographic Exclusive Ten Years at the 7th Annual Edition of Personal Structures
Courtesy of Sandra Cattaneo Adorno
At the age of 60, Sandra Cattaneo Adorno decided to pick up the camera to discover a new sense of belonging. The artist and photographer has been documenting her extensive travels navigating across borders since this calling in 2013. Now she will be debuting, Sandra Cattaneo Adorno: Ten Years, beginning April 20 at the 7th edition of Personal Structures: Beyond Boundaries, parallel to the 60th Venice Biennale at The European Cultural Centre.
© Sandra Cattaneo Adorno, from Sandra Cattaneo Adorno: Ten Years (European Cultural Center/Radius Books)
The photo exclusive is a visual diary with an infinite timeline featuring stills captured during her global travels with scenes of Mauritius, Egypt, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, New York, London, Italy, Portugal, and her native Brazil.
Her artistic decision to push these images to further meaning is done by printing them exclusively in metallic gold ink on black paper. This unique process sheds light on important narratives and experiences of foreigners, émigrés, exiled, and refugees. It “magically transforms quiet scenes of daily life into mystical works of art.” Over the years it has become a method to make sense of displacement, finding belonging through making, and focusing on the stories of those who have moved between the Global South and the Global North. It is a place for dreams masterfully made from scenes of reality.
The monograph is the centerpiece of the exhibition organized by the European Cultural Centre and also features 13 prints and a six-minute video installation that was curated by the photographer and Andrea Verganti. It highlights Adorno’s courage to experiment while being influenced by her previous series: The Other Half of the Sky, Águas de Ouro, and Scarti di Tempo.
Adorno’s work is threaded with inspiration from the symbolic language of Tina Modotti, the surrealist archetypes of Leonora Carrington, and the sensuous physicality of Georgia O'Keeffe. The photo exclusive, Ten Years, is also available as a hardcover accordion-fold booklet with 93 images on Radius Books.
Adorno creates a sense of belonging with others, who experience the adventures of womanhood that are both ethereal and evoking.
Sandra Cattaneo Adorno debuts her solo exhibition Ten Years at the 7th edition of Personal Structures, which runs parallel with the 60th Venice Biennale, April 20–November 24, 2024.
