Critical text by Mariaimma Gozzi
Airborne geometries, suspended and metaphysical, generated by electrical cables that become crossroads of connections mapping a hic et nunc, a place to linger in and one that captivates the eye, revealing the signs of a city that abducts the senses: Tokyo.
The visual artist Virgino Favale is likewise seduced by the charm of the East and by Japanese culture. He recounts the awareness and transformations that have taken shape over the twenty years he has spent in this city, the starting point of his ongoing project Tokyo 365.
Virginio’s photo reportage is original in that it does not fall into the stereotypes shaped by European cinema and melodrama, which often emphasize meditation practices, martial arts, the dignified endurance of pain, or the lives of geishas. Instead, he observes the city and its civilization from every possible perspective. One might say that his lens filters Eastern culture, but specifically its contemporary form, in which everything coexists: the aesthetic and philosophical taste of the past, the technology of the present, and the progressive impulse aimed at the future.
The triad of past, present and future is plausibly the triad of body, soul and spirit, which finds completion and harmony in the three cycles -Alone, Naigai and Connessioni- contained within Tokyo 365.
Reflecting on the Connessioni cycle, which views Tokyo from the ground upward, the strength of this entire visual investigation lies not only in its ability to juxtapose the geometric order created by electrical circuits, traffic lights, condensers, transformers and signs with local characters -unlike any other city such as New York, Calcutta or Rome- with the universal geometric order of nature and its inescapable mathematical laws. The real surprise lies in tracing the exegesis of this civilization through a vivid, resonant, audacious polychromy that remains deeply devoted to form and to a composition permeated by refined symbolism.
Reflecting on the Connessioni cycle, which views Tokyo from the ground upward, the strength of this entire visual investigation lies not only in its ability to juxtapose the geometric order created by electrical circuits, traffic lights, condensers, transformers and signs with local characters -unlike any other city such as New York, Calcutta or Rome- with the universal geometric order of nature and its inescapable mathematical laws. The real surprise lies in tracing the exegesis of this civilization through a vivid, resonant, audacious polychromy that remains deeply devoted to form and to a composition permeated by refined symbolism.
Returning to certain geographical and cultural factors, the suspended cables are, for the people of Tokyo, a seismological necessity. This cosmopolitan city must guarantee daily connections even under the constant threat of seismic activity. And just as there is a need for an aerial life that rises into the ether with its infinite new possibilities of connection, there is also an underground life rooted in the depths, a force each of us perceives as an unstoppable energy. It moves parallel to the cables above, with the difference that it remains unseen.
This is the synthesis Virginio seeks: to condense into a single image a concept that becomes the signature of an outer, inner and mental universe. In the leap between sky and earth, Virginio creates a physical and metaphysical bridge through which it becomes possible to reconstruct those paths, those passages, those visible and invisible movements, uniting the force of nature with the rationality expressed by the texture of cables.
This approach could, in theory, produce a sense of estrangement or even a dichotomy between the needs of nature and those of technology. Yet Connessioni shows no trace of conflict: the plant life does not appear overwhelmed or suffocated by the mesh of wires.
Virginio’s images persuade us because the iconic lyricism of the ancient culture of the Land of the Rising Sun emerges unmistakably, along with the atmospheres generated by the evolutionary rhythms of a city that never sleeps: Tokyo.