Filippo Tagliati, Las Vegas, NV
Point Park faculty and students welcomed photographer Filippo Tagliati to showcase his “series of stills moving” in beautiful synchronization for the final Speaking Light this semester.
Tagliati spoke about his personal history with photography while showcasing his most recent works in the JVH auditorium on Friday, Nov. 18.
Originally from Bologna, Italy, Tagliati has had a camera by his side since he was 13 years old. He said that it felt like the camera was his “natural friend.”
This natural friend stayed with him as he went on to get his BFA in Semiotics and Art History at Università di Bologna, and later his MFA at Arizona State University, when he moved to the United States.
For much of his early work, he was interested in creating panoramic images that represented the vastness of his subject matter, which was mostly architecture found throughout Italy and even some parts of the U.S.
As he explored the United States more, however, he found that he wanted to create more than a panoramic image; he wanted to show even more vastness through the art of montage.
“There’s not a right time to take the pictures;” he said, “there is a series of right times.”
He traveled to Las Vegas, Nev. where he showcased this technique of montaging with the city as his subject. One of his montages, Las Vegas, NV (as seen above), is of the city skyline, where he placed together both day and night shots of the city, and it was one of my favorite pieces he showed during his lecture.
His explorations did not just end with the U.S., however; he also visited Tokyo, Japan and found yet another technique that he could use for his art: video. He started using video and audio to create montages much like his photographic work, just with the use of motion.
After this trip to Tokyo, he found that he could use both his photography and video together to make moving art that almost seems to fit together like a puzzle, which he used in creating his newer projects.
Now living and working in Grand Rapids, Mich., he is not only working as an assistant professor of photography at Grand Rapids Community College, but also just finished his most recent project, The River Project. Focusing on the Grand River in Grand Rapids, Tagliati showed several examples from this project during his lecture.
In this work, he mixes his still photographs with video of the river as it changes through the seasons over a two-year span. He literally linked the different parts together like a jigsaw puzzle.
As a student who has been to every Speaking Light lecture this semester, Tagliati’s work was by far the most abstract pieces of the photographers that came to speak, and in my personal experience, some of the most interesting as a multimedia major.
While many may see multimedia as a journalistic term for using different forms of media, such as photography and video, to provide news and current events to the public, Tagliati turned multimedia into an art form. This artistic approach showed how beautiful works of art can be created by using different media.
Evan Skowvron, a second-year photojournalism major, also found Tagliati’s work to be thought-provoking and striking.
“I really like his work,” he said. “A lot of his work reminded me of Picasso. I especially enjoyed his very early stuff in which the subject matter would break through the frame of the image.”
Many of the students and faculty in the audience agreed that there was a subtle Cubism and Picasso influence to Tagliati’s work, which he seemed to appreciate and was grateful to hear.
Point Park Professor Patrick Millard, who helped bring the lecture series to Point Park, said he enjoyed Tagliati’s work because he, too, is from Grand Rapids.
He enjoyed much of Tagliati’s work because he is originally from Grand Rapids and he appreciated the dedication and creativity that Tagliati took toward his hometown.
As for the Speaking Light series as a whole for this semester, he thinks it is great how its following grows with every lecture and that the lectures are a “nice building of culture.”
The Speaking Light series returns for the Spring 2012 semester with a presentation by John Holmgren on Jan. 27. Other lectures scheduled include Tom Persinger on Feb. 24 and Stephen Chalmers on March 30.
All lectures are at 6 p.m. in the JVH Auditorium in Thayer Hall. A peer review session precedes each lecture at 5 p.m., where students can show their work with peers.
To see Filippo Tagliati’s work, see his website at http://www.filippotagliati.com or his Vimeo page at http://vimeo.com/filippotagliati
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