ADRIANO ALTAMIRA : OSSIMORI

Lucie Fontaine is proud to present “Ossimori” [Oxymora], a solo exhibition by Adriano Altamira.

This exhibition includes artworks and new editions dated from 1971 until now. Beside reinforcing Adriano Altamira’s extreme coherence it is also an attempt to link different phases and ‘styles’, trying to deliver a vision that is unified, the result of a practice that – although having different aims – has always been aligned to one credo.

Altamira’s vision is as objective and impartial as possible. His vision is a vision where the emotional element can be raised only as an affect. In other words it is never a cause of the prescribed observation. It is indeed the survival kit for the opinionated observer, which at the same time doesn’t mean or need to express the opinion itself. However the choice of certain subjects, topics and objects is clear, objective and avoids ambiguity.

It is curious that the oxymoron – the conciliation of the contraries – becomes the common element of these images. In fact the mystery of existence suggests us just the same.

Adriano Altamira is an artist, writer and teacher based in Milan. His first project Area di Coincidenza [Area of Coincidence] was presented in 1972. In the 80s and 90s he devoted his practice to the three-dimensional realization of dreams selected from his archive including more than 6000. In 1980 he exhibited his project Cronografie at the Venice Biennale and in 1992 the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi, presented a small retrospective of his work. He is the author of several books and the most recent is La vera storia della Fotografia Concettuale [The True History of Conceptual Photography].