Death of an Image #4C, 2005/2012

Death of an Image #4C, 2005/2012, is a limited-edition photograph from Andrea Galvani's series Death of an Image. To make this body of work, Galvani uses objects, mirrors, and smoke to create disturbances in viewers’ physical perception of landscapes. Through detonations and other interventions, Galvani likewise alters viewers' sense of time, whether capturing a split-second action otherwise incomprehensible to the naked eye or revealing a place’s properties through slowly unfolding processes.

This image was taken in the Greek countryside on a hot summer day. It was produced by placing mirrors in the branches of a tree and the surrounding area and then aligning them so that their reflections converged upon the camera’s lens. The resultant constellation of white lights anchors the image as a kind of negative focal point—a void that centers the viewers' attention. Death of an Image #4C depicts a momentary epiphany of orchestrated light, highlighting the disruptive properties of something that otherwise leaves no physical trace.

Pigment Print
Image Size: 18 x 26 inches
Paper Size: 20 x 28 inches
Edition of 25 + 1 Artist Proof
Signed and numbered by the artist

Andrea Galvani (b. 1973, Italy) earned a BFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Italy, in 1999, and an MFA in Visual Art from Bilbao University, Spain, in 2002. Drawing from other disciplines and often using scientific methodologies, his conceptual research informs his photography and video, drawing, and installation. Galvani has exhibited artworks at the Whitney Museum, Aperture Foundation, and Calder Foundation in New York; the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto (MART) in Italy; Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (MACRO); De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam; and elsewhere. In 2011 he received the New York Exposure Prize and was nominated for the prestigious Deutsche Boulme Photography Prize. Galvani lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.