Posted on
2014-02-24
Ghetto, Broomberg and Chanarin’s first collaboration with Trolley, was published ten years ago. It saw the then creative editors and principal photographers of Colors Magazine document 12 contemporary gated communities, from a maximum-security prison in South Africa to a psychiatric hospital in Cuba. Photographed entirely on large format colour negative, Ghetto took three years to produce and over time has became a popular classic within photo book history. It is now out of print.
‘Scarti di avviamento’ is the technical term in Italian for the paper that is fed through the printing press twice before making a book, to clean the drums of ink between print runs. This by-product is usually destroyed once the book is printed. But in this case the ‘scarti’ – Italian for scraps – were saved and stored away by publisher Gigi Giannuzzi. Following his untimely death in December 2012 this box was discovered.
In these scraps the layering of the original images from Ghetto appear almost purposeful. The twice-printed sheets reveal uncanny and often beautiful combinations, both compositionally and contextually. In one the arm of a South African prisoner drops casually into the scene of young Tanzanian refugees perched in a tree, whilst in another an American octogenarian from ‘Leisure World’ retirement home sits almost perfectly atop the knee of a Kurdish lorry driver.
These scraps would normally have been swept up and discarded from the factory floor. But in this exhibition of the original ‘scarti’ they are elevated to original and fascinating works in their own right; but as the artists state: “In truth they are nothing more than a series of little accidents.”
Opposite – ‘Untitled’ (Scarti 33), 2003
Exhibition runs through to March 22nd, 2014
TJ Boulting
59 Riding House Street
London
W1W 7EG
www.tjboulting.com
