The Photographs of Pietro Cugnasco

The eye is nomad as we continuously look … the act of seeing, the attention, the curiosity all change, they change yet remain the same despite the years; the sensation of the images that we each seek from a particular angle in time, remains. Time and surface. Surface – Photography that is a time machine. The photographs that we usually take when we are returning are also there as we move forward; fixation that mobilizes. A good part of living is the looking along the way. The continuous glance is the seeing of such intense looking, it is sensing how revealing intermittent attention is. It is finding the new in that which we thought we knew well and feeling that what we have seen is what we will see and in fact what we are looking at is the bridge that we built between the extremes. The images we are attracted to and the way we relate to what is visible are modified as we live our lives but what is essential is that they charge us with motivation and energy; they are the recollection of what we know and that which is unknown all at once. The glance is nomad by nature and produces the image that remains in us. The eye travels great distances in seconds but it takes a lifetime to create what we see.

Pietro Cugnasco 2001