Synopses & Reviews
German-born photographer Matthias Schaller discovered the architectural phenomenon of the controfacciata (counter-facade)--a sort of hall or corridor built out from the first floor of a building--while exploring the palaces along the edges of Venice's canals. From 2004 to 2007, he centered his lens on the twilit windows inside these spaces, which imbue the musty elegance of the busts, furniture and paintings that fill them with an ethereal glow, while simultaneously muting all color. In this series, made in the quarter between Ponte di Rialto and Piazza San Marco, Schaller captures the faded grandeur of earlier days, offering tantalizing glimpses of passages that lead to unknown rooms and silent histories. The photographs were made from a direct elevation perspective, highlighting the length of space between Schaller's camera and the light-flooded windows that lead to the water's edge. Controfacciata presents an original view of this city, imbued with the haunting tension and the bittersweet paradox that is Venice.
Synopsis
For the last three years--during the pontificates of both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI-- Matthias Schaller has gone inside the Vatican to photograph the rarely-seen offices of the Roman Catholic cardinals. Using fifteenth-century iconography as a model, such as the portraits of cardinals St. Hieronymus and St. Augustine by Vittore Carpaccio, Schaller combines Renaissance tradition with the technology and conventions of contemporary art--for his works are portraits without the sitter. In this absorbing monograph, his subjects are revealed through our entree into their intimate chambers and through the subtle differences of their attendant accessories, forcing viewers to confront our own assumptions about who these men really are. It perhaps comes as no surprise that Schaller, who was born in Germany and now splits his time between New York and Venice, studied cultural anthropology before embarking on his career in photography.