Preganziol, 1983

Thirty years ago in 1983, Italian photographer Guido Guidi created a short photographic series, taken inside a room in Preganziol, Italy. The sixteen images which make up Preganziol, 1983 were taken within the confines of four bare walls. The only light is emitted through two windows which sit crossways from one another. 'Preganziol, 1983' is, at first glance, a simple exploration of light, a photographer’s exercise in how to define and describe physical space within a photograph and how light shapes these descriptions. On closer inspection the series is multi-layered: Guidi’s portraits of a room alludes to the idea of the camera obscura; exterior vistas allude to the Albertian window; blank walls create an aura of emptiness and abandonment; and the shifting of light across the walls signifies the movement of time. Guidi’s skill as a photographer and craftsman of the image is evident here, and this conceptual sequence is charged by a leitmotif running through Guidi’s work: the void, the knowledge that beyond the frame reality goes on unfolding, immeasurable, endless.