Seeing is complex. During the process of photographing the theater I realized that my initial desire to document the space in a straightforward way had merged with a more abstract desire to mark time by following the play of light over a period of two full days. The result is Chiaroscuro. Alison Harris, excerpted from Brick, A Literary Journal
 
Il Vicolo is pleased to exhibit Alison Harris’ photographs of Il Teatro Sociale di Camogli, a late-nineteenth century theater on the Italian Riviera. Harris made the photographs prior to the theater’s restoration, scheduled to begin in 2010. Twenty-three archival inkjet prints (40cm x 60cm) will be exhibited.
 
As Farida Simonetti observes in her introductory essay, the documentary element in Alison Harris’ work evolves into a meditation on light: “These are images that cross mental thresholds…. in the silent emptiness of the Theater, light became for her the only sign of life; light falling on things, progressively illuminating different areas, bringing forth unseen spaces from the shadows, drawing lines, and revealing objects, details and decades-old dust….”
 
Alison Harris is a photographer based in Paris. Chiaroscuro is her first solo show in Italy.
Harris has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions in the United States: Paris: Street Theater (FotoFest’96 The International Festival of Photography, Houston Texas); Paris, Paris – Journey into the City of Light (Michèle Gagne Gallery, Soho, New York, 2005); Bleu, Blanc, Rouge in B+W – Images of France by European and American photographers (Flatfile Galleries, Chicago, 2006).
 
Alison Harris’ photography is in the collections of the Musée Carnavalet (Paris Historical Museum), the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris (Paris Historical Library), Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library) and Mount Holyoke Colllege Art Museum (Massachusetts). Her work is also in numerous private collections in Europe and the United States, including the Nelson Blitz, Jr. and Catherine Woodard Collection.