Nicolò Quirico’s works appear from afar as urban photographs but, taking a few steps forward, details emerge: words and matter animate cities and its buildings. In fact, the artist approaches traditional landscape photography with a contemporary look, combining the photographic print with the pages of vintage books through the technique of collage. The superimpositions and juxtapositions of the sheets make the works conceptual and material.
Nicolò Quirico takes multiple shots of the cities buildings, its most emblematic monuments and the most hidden and forgotten streets, which are then assembled together creating impossible perspectives far removed from reality, almost as if they were panoramic photographs. Next, the artist inserts book pages, carefully chosen according to their content, words and graphic appearance. The pages are applied following the pattern of architecture, so that buildings and words become one.
In Quirico’s works, architecture and literature are placed in dialogue, emphasizing the history of man and his work. Images communicate with words, and words give life to inanimate and static subjects (such as statues, Ferris wheels, architecture, monuments) by enhancing their human component.
The texts inserted in the photographs ideally represent the transcript of the words spoken among the streets of the cities, by those who live in the buildings and those who populate the streets, becoming a tangible trace of the continuous passage of human on Earth. The city, which seen from the top of a building or from a crowded sidewalk, may seem aseptic, devoid of feelings and rigid, with Quirico’s chosen words and the ripples of the pages, acquires softness, movement and becomes charged with humanity.
With Nicolo Quirico’s works, historical monuments – such as the Colosseum in Rome, the Duomo in Milan or the Eiffel Tower – that appear so distant to us become familiar and remind us that they are part of us, of what we were and what we are.
