Living in the collage-ment Living in the collage-ment (July 30, 2004)

The art of time on display at MVCPA

By Katie Vaughn

A standard artistic medium got a facelift in Gianfranco Paolozzi's exhibit at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. Paolozzi makes collages but not just any collages -- his are "collagements."

"Every shot is a moment and I put them together in a collage," he said. Paolozzi, who is based in Sunnyvale, uses photographs in a series of collages exploring family, memories and the passing of time. "Collagement" is a name he invented to describe his works, which include photographs from many points in time.

Oftentimes Paolozzi's subjects are family members, friends and neighbors, and sometimes he asks strangers for permission to photograph them.

After choosing a subject, Paolozzi snaps one photograph after another of it, conscious of the time passing between each click.

"I'm interested in showing what I have in front of my eyes, but in spots, in a sequence, frame by frame," he said.

Paolozzi said when he takes several photographs of a single subject he is able to convey to viewers the action that passes in front of him.

"I am able to tell more that way," he said. "I'm trying to tell them the kind of story that I see with my eyes."

Paolozzi has taken photographs since he was a boy growing up in San Pietro Avellana, Italy, but his artistic education focused on drawing and painting. Even now he is less interested in photographs themselves than in how he can use them.

"Going to photographs was a change," he said. "I'm not a photographer. Technically speaking, I don't know much."

Paolozzi shot the photographs he used in "The Snow" and "Next Morning" on a family trip to Lake Tahoe. As in most of his works in this exhibit, Paolozzi used a combination of standard-size photographs in repetitions and put together to render a larger image. For instance, several photographs are used to show family members sitting on a couch and a tree shooting up the center of the work.

"Next Morning" features individual photographs of kids sledding on bright saucers. Paolozzi said catching all the action on film was a difficult feat.

"During the night it had snowed. I went out and saw my father-in-law with a broom to get the snow off of the cars. Then the kids came out and my sister-in-law came out with the camcorder to capture what the kids were doing."

Quite different in tone are Paolozzi's two "After 12 Years" collages, based on his trip to the Boiano graveyard 12 years after his father died. Each shows an Italian cemetery, one with a snow-covered field in tones created by different photographic processing systems and the other with a panorama of the field.

In "The Jewel," Paolozzi uses an alternative style, namely repetition. Two photographs -- a white carousel horse head and a girl -- are set in rows. Their layout creates a rhythmic and almost dizzying effect, much like riding a carousel.

"It is Raining" illustrates a technique Paolozzi employs in nearly all his works. The collection of photographs set on a white sheet of paper show different parts of scene from the artist's garage. An old gray BMW and even older VW van sit on a wet driveway and two women (actually the same woman captured twice) walk dogs down the street. At the bottom of the composition, a photograph shows a cat near Paolozzi's sneaker-clad feet, showing the view is his. He usually includes himself somewhere in his collages.

"You can usually see part of me where the story starts or ends. It's a referral point, and I guess I want part of myself in," he said.

Despite his love of memories, Paolozzi destroyed all his photograph negatives. He said when something has worked for him, his tendency is to want to use it again in future works.

"I don't want to repeat myself," he said. "I have to go forward."

Information

What: Gianfranco Paolozzi's collagements

Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St.

When: Mondays-Fridays noon-1 p.m. and one hour prior to a public performance. Through Aug. 16.

Cost: Free

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