Memories of my 100 Years

Working upon photographs with cut-and-paste collage and painting, the artist detonates a process of ownership deconstruction underway since the 1930s, when the concept of the instant photograph heralded a new age of portraiture. Among the images chosen are these outdoor snapshots of everyday social life in France: a couple out for a country stroll; a group on the footpath; children playing on a sand spit. The natural disorganisation of the figures scattered about the pictures reveals that these individuals did not stand still for a whole minute while the camera captured their image, but were snapped during a brief pause in their activities. Julio Villani produces a typically contemporary art that crosses geographic and idiomatic frontiers. His work employs a range of techniques and supports, including administrative paperwork and wedding and first communion photos, all of which share a common denominator: an exploration of the flipside of things, as if the front and back of art were one in the same.