CITYSCAPES - Paris Wall Pictures by Sandro Santioli

A series of images about architecture, in PARIS: real cityscapes before our eyes.

Review by Stefania Biamonti

As a view, your gaze vibrates then seems to shatter as it surveys hundreds of windows reflecting and magnifyng the glossiness of other windows, metal structures and buildings, all somehow concealing the hustle and bustle that Paris’ La Defence district, Europe’s largest business centre, is renowned for.

Windows turn into mirrors that distort the objectivity of the photographer’s vision, simultaneously reflecting and restoring every sentiment found behind that intense gaze, at the same time, intent or showing an unwillingness to blindly follow the hard and fast logical rules that bind what we can call “reality”. While our physical presence is clear and cannot be denied, perhaps what is missing is humankind itself. By extension, not many examples of work exist that faithfully represent the true and actual fabric of urban landscapes.

Sandro, on the other hand, refuses to be happy with his results and approaches the subject time and again. A dizzyng array of lines, geometric shapes, light sources and colors seem to lurk in-between and gradually begin to permeate the standard bidimensionality of photographic reproduction, remodeling space and taking the architectural forms of La Défence and turning them into a wonderful labyrinth of incongruencies and dynamic textures where the viewer’s eye can become quickly entangled, as if ensnared in a fishing net.