Rome is the name of many cities in the United States, cities that share only a name, with little resembling the grandeur of the eternal city across the Atlantic. What characterises them are a limited number of inhabitants, in most cases unaware of the inheritance they carry, and sometimes the presence of a river. Often these cities are nothing but a road.
Paolo Di Lucente’s research began during a visit to Rome in New York State, which along with its counterpart in Georgia, is one of the largest cities by extension. The chance encounter with a municipal officer reveals a historical conjuncture: the donation by Mussolini in 1929 of a bronze copy of the Capitoline Wolf to the city, followed by another replica donated to Rome New York in 1956 by Alfonso Felici, a WW2 veteran.
The journey through the United States delineates the construction of a map that deliberately is not made explicit within Rome. Straying from any documentary intention; Paolo Di Lucente’s photographic research builds on the idea of bewilderment. In the sequence of images, there is no indication of which Rome we are observing; what we see through the pages is a series of misunderstandings dictating the rhythm.
The photographic sequence plays on analogies, false ruins alternate with other roman symbols and surreal scenery: bronze wolves, loggias with neoclassical columns, a Colosseum, marble, rivers, hills, a cemetery and the ruins of American cities.
What we are looking at is what is not. An absent original that submits us to a figural mystery, that of a slight dissimilarity. The Romes we see are perpetuating non-conforming, interpreted, non-guaranteed copies. They are a resemblance out of place. The editing of the images calls into question heterogeneous times that unfold between the pages.
In this book, the American road trip meets the postcards of imperial Rome in a subtle mix of genres. Both subjects, the myth of the American dream and the endless fascination for the ruins of history, are the protagonists of a journey through parallel eternal cities.
Paolo Di Lucente is an italian photographer based in Rome. His work sits at the intersection of portraiture, landscape, still-life, fashion and a costant search for images suspended in time.
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© Text and pictures by Paolo Di Lucente
