VALENTINA MURABITO: A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM

Obviously by magic, the photo artist Valen­tina Mura­b­ito gene­ra­tes gro­tes­que, absurd and sur­real motifs on con­crete blocks, wood, steel and walls. The Süd­deut­sche Zei­tung cal­led her „Alche­mist“ because she deve­l­o­ped a new che­mi­cal pro­cess in the dar­kroom, crea­ting ana­lo­gue pho­to­graphs of fan­tas­tic crea­tures like a half-girl-half-peacock or a goat with four horns, taken, inter alia, in his­to­ri­cal pla­ces. In April, the Gal­lery for Con­tem­porary Pho­to­gra­phy will give an over­view of the mul­ti­fa­ce­ted work of this excep­tio­nal pho­to­gra­pher with „A Dream wit­hin a Dream“. The title refers to a poem by Edgar Allen Poe, who also abducts his rea­dership in par­al­lel worlds.
The new tech­ni­que of being able to move and shape the sur­face of pho­to­gra­phy like a skin made Valen­tina Mura­b­ito famous. This is actually impos­si­ble, because a pho­to­graph doesn‘t dis­solve — just like the skin — from the ground. The TV chan­nel arte gives a good insight in a post, online at: „Valen­tina Mura­b­ito Arte“ (length: 2 min.). The 16 exhi­bi­ted ana­log pho­to­graphs are all uni­que and prin­ted out by the artist by hand on water­co­lor and baryta paper, wood, steel and con­crete blocks.
In her works, Valen­tina Mura­b­ito com­bi­nes fic­tion and rea­lity, anci­ent myths and poli­ti­cal phi­lo­so­phy, art and bio­po­li­tics. This term was coi­ned by the phi­lo­so­pher Michel Fou­cault and descri­bes a policy that is incre­a­sin­gly inva­ding the bio­lo­gi­cal lives of people, deter­mi­ning that, e.g. in Ger­many, a han­di­cap­ped child may be abor­ted until the 23rd week, whe­reas the ter­mi­nally ill should not be allo­wed to die self-determined.
Valen­tina Mura­b­ito breaks with com­mon rep­re­sen­ta­ti­ons, blurs the boun­da­ries of pain­ting and sculp­ture and inva­des pho­to­gra­phy, as does poli­tics in bio­logy. In Bac­chante (2018), she por­trays the male Greek god of wine, Bac­chus, andro­gy­n­ous and Asian. Her deity laughs at the fact that no one knows if she is male or female. In Amore sacro e amor pro­fano (2019) a man walks like an ani­mal on all fours with a tiny hat and in dun­ga­rees in front of the altar of the Ber­lin Cathe­dral. „This seems ghostly, as if she had cap­tu­red the sum­mo­ned of spi­ri­tua­list ses­si­ons — hush! — with the camera. In doing so, her ana­lo­gue images are crea­ted over months in an extre­mely com­plex pro­cess, remi­ni­scing of the pioneers of pho­to­gra­phy, such as Ead­ward Muy­bridge,“ says Jutta Cze­g­uhn of the Süd­deut­sche Zeitung.

Valen­tina Mura­b­ito (* 1981 in Giarre/Italy) exhi­bi­ted her works throug­hout Europe in muse­ums such as the Klosterneuburg/Austria or the Hun­ga­rian Aca­demy in Rome, in gal­le­ries and at art fairs. They are part of various collec­tions, such as the Aus­trian collec­tion Spall­Art. Since 2009 she lives in Ber­lin. Cur­rently she is still at Johanna Breede. Pho­to­kunst in Ber­lin and Stør­punkt. Gal­lery for Con­tem­porary Art in Munich. More infor­ma­tion and press can be found on her web­site www.valentina-murabito.com.