Dirt

Dirt is the result of the collaboration between Italian photographers Vittoria Gerardi and Renato D’Agostin. While traveling across the United States, Gerardi and D’Agostin focused on two separate projects, published as Confine (Hyakutake Editions, 2016) and 7439 (Nomadic Editions, 2016). A selection from the series unite together in Dirt, generating a continuous between man and nature.

In a beautifully produced accordion book, the lunar landscape of Death Valley (California) and the spinning wheels of the Demolition Derby (Utah) develop into a unique expression of extremity.

Gerardi draws the perception of man in relation to violence in Nature. Masks from fragments of the photographic negative in the darkroom turn the earth of Death Valley into a DNA shape, highlighting the extreme conditions of light and time, with matter fading into nuances of gray and black portraying the violent desert, revealing the struggle between man and nature as fertile and tragic event, an extension from the physical to the internal world.

D’Agostin records the visual noise of the carcasses crashing in the night like gladiators in the arena, evolving into a manifestation of destruction, competing until the last car survives and wins. Smocking engines and wheels slashing into the ground loudly battle through the pages of the book, in a vortex of mud.

A primitive expression of man and nature in modern times, Dirt balances between presence and absence, realism and abstraction.

Hyakutake Editions, 2018. Accordion, 27x21cm (27x168cm open). 16 photographs. Text by Jean-Louis Poitevin. Translation by Charlotte Mandell. Design by M-L-XL. Printed by Grafiche Veneziane, Venice. Limited edition of 700 copies