Rania Khallaf is amazed by a distinctive new look at still life There are few photography exhibitions that can totally grab one's eyes and transport one to a new world, let alone for day after day. One such exhibition ended just yesterday, 31 March. The ten-day exhibition "The other reality" at the Italian Cultural Centre in Zamalek showed 104 photographs by the Italian photographer, sculptor and professor of architecture Ilario Principe. What is reality? The photographer asks if it is the world around us; or the long-discussed question of to be or not to be, to see or not to see? For Principe, photography is reality, or another reality regarding the "Tridimensional world", as he describes it in the exhibition flyer. However, any photograph, he argues, has two physical dimensions; but how many dimensions does reality have? I find this assumption amazing! Equally amazing is the exhibition, which I visited twice last week. The photographic subjects are arguable; each one invites you to rethink what it represents. Most of the photographs are in colour, with only a few in black and white. One might stand for several minutes in front of one of these eloquent photographs and feel that one does not want to move to the next one before building one's own vision of reality. "Reality is a dream. The dream of the photograph is reality," Principe answered when I asked him about his own definition of reality. "My photograph is my dream. My dream is the other reality, the reality that I prefer to put into my photographs," he went on. "The photographer's eye uses the art of photography as a source of memory, a meditation of human stances, as if it were an expressive and independent language which does not include predetermined judgments, but rather a conflicting view about the world," says Patrizia Raveggi, manager of the Italian Cultural Centre. Most of the photographs were taken in New Zealand and Australia, countries of paradoxes -- as described by Raveggi -- from a point of view that is "disturbed and tortured by paradoxes; I mean these shadows that exist in almost all photographs." This is the seventh exhibition for Principe. The largest was in India in 2006. Principe is fascinated by objects more than by anything else. "If you take a photograph of a small part of an abstract object, it is never the same as the original thing. It is then completely different from the original object; a different reality," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. "It is rather difficult for me to photograph people, because one should respect their privacy. Nature is also a bit difficult to handle, I guess." He smiles at this. However, he says the exhibition is not a project on its own. "I did not have this theme in mind while I took the photographs. It just came out like this," he says. Most of Principe's abstract photographs are printed in black and white. "I believe they are more understandable in black and white. Actually, I prefer it this way," he commented. "I think colour photographs are like a living performance." One of his favorite colour photographs is one he took in 2006 in Auckland, New Zealand. It is a picture of a huge commercial banner which features the face of a girl with fierce, glassy eyes. Some words are inscribed on the side: 3D Artist. The girl is staring on something indefinable, while the background just an old garage. "I took this photograph from a very far point. It just captured my eye. I think it is very indicative," Principe says. Next to it is another photograph that features two female mannequins standing in front of a broken wall. Despite their elegant look, it seems that the mannequins live in a very poor district. To my astonishment, this photograph, which I find very similar to the other since the three women have common facial features, was taken in Istanbul in 2003. Another fascinating photograph, taken by the artist in New Zealand in 2006, is of an overweight, half-naked Japanese man performing what looks like a war dance in a spacious area. Behind him, tourists stand focused on something a completely different, which for its part is invisible. Adjacent to these is a photograph of a statue called The Secret Bench of Knowledge which is located at the entrance of the National Library in Ottawa. The statue features a girl and a boy who sit close together on a bench. "When I took this photograph the statue was incomplete, so it bears inscriptions of the library's visitors on the bench. I thought it was an interesting object and has a unique human element," he told the Weekly. Principe is obsessed with shadows and reflections. "The shadow of an object makes a different shape, and hence a different reality," he says. His 10-day visit to Egypt included visits to Beni Sweif, Luxor and Aswan in Upper Egypt, and to Alexandria. "This is my first visit to Egypt and will not be the last," he says. "Egypt is a fascinating country. I have taken about 2,000 photographs up to now. When I start taking photographs I never stop, and I think I now have a special theme in mind. My next exhibition will be tackling the concept of "Luck", and it will be held in near future in Cairo," he announced. Despite being also a creative writer who writes novels and poems, Principe is exceptionally modest. He does not consider himself a professional photographer. "Well, I know nothing about photography," Principe told Raveggi. "My camera does everything, and luck plays a good part in this game too.". Well then, is it the photographer, or is it the camera that leads the consciousness to the good shot? The question remains unanswered.
