Mario Cresci's Photographic Dialogue with History at Modena

Mario Cresci's exhibition 'La luce, la traccia, la forma' opens September 12 at Palazzo Santa Margherita in Modena, curated by Chiara Dall'Olio and organized by Fondazione Modena Arti Visive. The show dialogues with 'L'impronta del reale. W. H. Fox Talbot alle origini della fotografia' at Gallerie Estensi. Cresci's works explore light, trace, and form, including 'Rivelati' (Rome 2010) — photographs of Calamatta's 1863 engraving of Raphael's Madonna della Seggiola, revealing shifting positive-negative images as light hits the copper plate. 'Tre focus su Piranesi' (Rome 2011-Bergamo 2020) isolates burin marks from Piranesi's 'Le Carceri' series (c. 1745), transforming them into luminous moving lines. A self-portrait diptych reflects Cresci and his camera on a copper plate, made in Mario Benedetti's Bergamo studio. A six-meter lightbox presents 'Geometria non euclidea' (Venice 1964-Matera 1972), a homage to Malevich. Cresci's earlier 'Copia di copia' series (1980s) traced pencil on tracing paper over historical photographs. Collaborator Alfredo Corrao, photographer for the Soprintendenza, developed a method to capture normally invisible details from engraving plates. The exhibition examines photography as index and trace, bridging form theory and visual perception.