Paola Di Bello
Detail from ‘Community Specific Archive’
2026
Collage of photographic prints and various museum materials
Courtesy: the artist and CSAC – Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, University of Parma

THE BLANK CONTEMPORARY ART
99 WORDS WITH PAOLA DI BELLO

The materials I choose − portraits, but landscapes as well − are photographed by decontextualizing the subject, focusing the frame on specific details of the original image. I isolate, crop, highlight, and invert. The who, how, what, where, when, and why of the primary photograph are no longer legible or even comprehensible. They no longer hold any importance.
Ultimately, these are photographs of photographs. Yet, photography has always decontextualized and recontextualized, that is its primary function, its inherent power.
…at this stage, my images are still “in potentia” – raw, unrefined matter. And yet, a simple shift in perspective is all it takes to give substance to entirely different worlds.