The architecture, the light, the stones, the colors of Venice in silence. “Deserted and bright during the day, spooky and full of charm at night. I could not resist the opportunity to rediscover, in this new light, my magical city, which I love deeply ". Thus in the preface of his photographic book dedicated to Venice. And it is truly an act of love the volume of Gaby Wagner, Venetian by adoption, who during the lockdown last spring leaves home to discover “that” Venice.
A unique piece. “Which at first gave me great happiness. Only afterwards did I experience shivers of anguish for the economic tragedy that would have engulfed the city. I was struck by the silence of those surreal settings. I looked at the Venice of the present, I thought of the Venice of the past, I reflected on the Venice of the future that will have to recover and rethink itself as a city, leaving the tourist monoculture ".
The Venice of the lockdown fil rouge ideal for a photo book
"Venice in silence" is the title of the volume (published in Italian and English) which collects a selection of images among the approximately 800 shots taken by Gaby Wagner with the camera of her mobile phone. For a long time Gaby Wagner had meditated on the creation of a photographic book, because she loves to photograph, because in 35 years she has taken 25 photos in her travels around the world.
“But I couldn't find that essential fil rouge to carry out this project. Then, I had just returned to Venice after a trip abroad, the pandemic breaks out and the lockdown arrives. I went out and observed, in this city completely deserted and kissed by meteorologically splendid weather, the fluidity of the light of dawn and that of sunset, the darkness of the night. I understood that that would be the right fil rouge ". The almost casual contact with the Spanish publishing house Ediciones El Viso - which has edited important publications for museums such as Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre - did the rest. Gaby Wagner, in perfect harmony with the publisher, oversaw the entire layout of the volume.
At home, on the noble floor of an ancient building in San Polo, overlooking the Grand Canal, "I had photos everywhere, on the tables, on the sofas, on the floor ... it was difficult to select which ones would enter the book". However, the ideas were clear and the book ready at the speed of light. In autumn the presentation in Paris, at the Galerie Guillaume. The review of Le Monde which publishes a portfolio with eleven photographs taken from the book. And always in Paris in the future there will also be an exhibition. In spring, some of these shots had already been published in Sette, the weekly magazine of Corriere della Sera.
Gaby Wagner and the silence of the city where she chose to live
Gaby Wagner has lived permanently in Venice since 2009. Designer of glass (he collaborated with Laura de Santillana), photographer with a career as a model before Paris then in Milan, then again in Paris as director of a modeling agency, in 1997 she rents with her husband a floor of Palazzo Polignac in Venice, a city she has frequented for some time. In 2009, after four years of restoration, he moved to the building where he currently lives and from whose terrace, last spring, he paused to observe the enchantment of the colors of the magically deserted Grand Canal. “In those days, as I walked around the silent city, accompanied only by the sound of my footsteps, I realized the great privilege I was experiencing. Emotions, opposing feelings of joy and even anguish. These photos were for me a unique and in some ways shocking experience ".
A quick overview focuses on the row of deserted porticoes of the Doge's Palace. On an extraordinary rainbow that, after a storm, embraces the two banks of the Grand Canal. One click fixes the reflection of gondolas and buildings in the Orseolo Basin. Another is dedicated to an admirable, almost unreal, mirror effect of the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi on the Grand Canal. Here is the Basilica of San Marco in a deserted square: it is partially illuminated by the sun and seems almost adorned with a crown. Dark clouds over the Punta della Dogana and the domes of the Basilica della Salute. Countless images of a Venice that only the Venetians in those days were able to see. Among the most emblematic are those of the deserted Rialto Bridge. Not at night but also at noon. A silent city, Venice in silence, between dream and reality.
