KIN 金 - PHOTOGRAPHS BY CAROLA GUAINERI | KINTSUGI BY ANITA CERRATO

From 20/05/2021 To 19/06/2021

In a moment of reconstruction and rebirth, Carola Guaineri and Anita Cerrato exhibit the result of three years of work to apply the technique of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing with gold, to photography. Promoted by the Expowall Gallery in Milan, the exhibition was inaugurated on Thursday, May 20, 2021.

KIN 金 ("gold" in Japanese) is a selection of 14 photographs printed in the darkroom by Carola Guaineri, then torn and reassembled through the preciousness of a golden thread by Anita Cerrato. A strong union between Carola and Anita, between the times of analogue photography and the basins of photographic development in front of which one waits for the image to take shape, and the patient and measured times of the gold thread which, following the irregularities of the fractures, slowly reassembles the fragments, awakening the form of the object.

The choice of images made by Carola Guaineri and Anita Cerrato has to do with needs that are often neglected but that strongly belong to us. For this reason, a work of recomposition is necessary so that these needs can again emerge in all their human necessity for their value, as precious as gold.

Kintsugi has recently been used by major international brands, from automotive to cosmetics to jewelry, as a metaphor for rebirth. 

Carola and Anita explain: "Our project, more relevant than ever today, was born more than three years ago. We start from the photos printed in the darkroom, we tear them, and we restore them with the original kintsugi technique. It took all these years to do a thorough research on materials and techniques, since the photos are really torn, glued, plastered and gilded using urushi lacquer and pure gold. The big technical difficulty is due to the fact that the papers used for printing, baryta and polythene, are very delicate and fear humidity, while urushi lacquer needs a so-called wall to polymerize: a wood-lined chamber where there are at least 20° and 65% relative humidity." 

"What's under that gold filament? - asks Luigi Guaineri, author of the presentation text.  What is under the congealed moment in a photograph? What if it were a noise, or a sound? Maybe a word? The sound of a vase breaking. The sound surrounding the moment in a photograph. Beneath the artful weaving of that golden thread is the echo of the sound of a vase breaking, the sound of a photograph being torn. Yes, because the charm, or for some just the curiosity, of a technique such as Kintsugi, is not to hide. It is in the not-being-invisible, in not having the pretension of returning the object to its presumed originality. On the contrary, his intervention is clearly visible. To the point of being an integral part of it, and not simply a scar. That golden thread doesn't just repair, it creates. What if a photograph breaks? A vase is a concrete object, it refers to a use. But what does a photograph refer to? And what does the intervention of kintsugi evoke?  It is here that the collaboration between Carola Guaineri and Anita Cerrato assumes the value of play and reference, of references and echoes, and intends to suggest an invitation to question ourselves on some aspects that concern us, not only individually".

Carola Guaineri was born in Milan on December 30, 1975. She began her career as a photographer in 1991, after seeing the exhibition of the photographer Ansel Adams. Since then, black and white have become the means of expression. She works in her darkroom, developing and printing her own photos in a continuous stylistic research.
  
Anita Cerrato was born in Milan on May 20, 1975. Writer and restorer, she learned the original kintsugi technique from some Japanese masters. In 2015, together with Giancarlo Bozzani, artist and designer, she founded Kintsu Handmade. The passion for design also leads her to do a lot of research, to probe new creative ideas, she experiments by applying the ancient technique of kintsugi on unusual materials.

The exhibition will be open by appointment until June 19, 2021.