Il mondo di prima, 2020

Seven picture frames, arranged at random on the support surface of a table, each present a photomontage featuring the artist as a child in imaginary circumstances: in Henri Matisse’s studio, in the room of a nineteenth-century art school, on the stage of a theatre, at the museum, or in conversation with a female nude.
The random arrangement of the picture frames suggests a labyrinthine “assembly” of figures of different provenances and from different times, offsetting the intimate register of the artist’s own childhood portraits.
Akin to an imaginary photoreportage, the artist of today depicts himself in favourite places pertaining to past eras, intersecting, with a game of temporal shifts, the “past predictions” of the artist of today with the “future promises” of the child of yesterday.
The same theme was developed in another variant from the same year (GPO-1109) and in a version with an eighth collage displayed on a chair (GPO-1094).