July 2018

One On Four by Alessandro Simonetti

Slam Jam celebrates its presence in NYC featuring Italian photographer Alessandro Simonetti’s work One On Four. The exhibition will open on 10 July at 6pm, and last until 12 July.

As the young and largely unknown photographer’s first solo exhibition in France, One On Four explores portraiture through the lens of a ID and passport camera. Each freeze-framed image has been stamped into the paper and the viewer four times, leaving a certain air of surreality surrounding each photo.

Simonetti originally bought the camera for fun, realizing that such a model will soon be obsolete and impossible to find. The camera then turned from fun find to raison d’être for this series of celebrity portraits.

At the forefront of the collection’s concept sits the idea of consumer culture. Taking people, stamping them out generically over and over until their emotions seem less real, and then quickly moving on to the next shiny celebrity. This is the undeniable rhythm of today. The camera has already gone out of style, so when will the people it has captured?

But deeper through the series of photos runs an immense comment on human nature. Each photo mocks the repetitive nature of emotions and the mind. We relive painful moments, joyful moments, powerful experiences, diminishing experiences. We make the same mistakes, take the same paths, walk in circles. Our single portrait comes together, only for us to find that we’ve been doing the exact same thing over and over.

Each photo captures an unmistakably frozen moment, noticeably motionless. They throw the viewer to a halt, like being hurled forward when the train brakes too quickly. It is a collection of quiet moments under a strong spotlight.

A perfect geometry is accomplished in the small exhibition space, making the whole exhibition– and the way it’s displayed– even greater than the sum of its parts.

Through the collection runs strength in simplicity, strength in concept, and strength in the capture of an expression.