Niccolò Morgan Gandolfi: “Every image is a journey”

A temporary installation in the natural landscape that, once removed, will live on through photography. A composition of shells collected during long walks on the beach and, later, arranged and photographed. A glazed terracotta vase inspired by the process that forms stalagmites. Niccolò Morgan Gandolfi’s work is all about exploring nature, the passing of time, and the infinite ideas generated by the constant interaction between the two.

Born in 1983 in Washington, Gandolfi attended the Riccardo Bauer School of Photography in Milan, later graduating in Visual and Performing Arts at the IUAV in Venice. The artist, photographer, and designer now lives and works in Bologna. From treks into nature to the experiments he conducts on materials in his laboratory, Gandolfi’s brand of creativity doesn’t easily slot into any one category of the applied arts. In the same way, his thinking goes beyond focusing on just one theme to expressing the freest and most profound meaning of art.

Interview with Niccolò Morgan Gandolfi

Can you tell us about your education?

When I was studying photography in Milan, digital photography was still in its infancy. I still work with film, using a view camera [a professional-level camera with special functions that portable cameras don’t have] that produces very high quality images. Then I enrolled at IUAV, where many of my teachers were also artists. Among them were people like Alberto Garutti, Mario Airò, Stefano Arienti, Armin Link, Guido Guidi, Giorgio Agamben, Angela Vettese, Adrian Paci, Lawrence Carol, Nicolas Bourriaud, Stefano Graziani, and many others. My thesis, Aesthetics of Survival, triggered a photography project centered on installations in the landscape.

How did you get involved in product design?

After graduating, I spent a year in Los Angeles working on a research project involving the city’s green spaces. As a photographer, I’ve worked for private individuals, architects, and trade journals. I started making my own photo frames using wood and metal, which led me to visiting many artisan workshops. That was when I met Claudio Volta from Doodesign. He was looking for someone like me who could create unique, customized products. It began with the Stele stool, which I based on an damaged ancient column, reinventing its shape and color. Doodesign gave me the opportunity to work on a wide range of products (tables, stools, coffee tables, and so on), which meant that I was always working on something different.

What role does material research have in your creative process?

A very important one. My lab is full of the materials I’ve collected on my treasure hunts. It’s important for me to be able to store all these objects in one place. Combining them comes very naturally to me, and I’ve never needed to do any internet research or buy anything new. Everything I need is already there, all around me. A large part of my work revolves around the table where I do a lot of experiments to speed up the effects of time on different materials. It’s a kind of combination of past and future archaeology, because I speed up processes that are normally extremely slow. Chemistry plays a big role in what I do.

Can you give an example of how you go about processing materials?

For the frame of the SL2 sofa, I used iron, and not a metal like steel or aluminum, for the uniqueness of its patina. I used an orbital sander on pickled steel, then treated it with acid, and burnished it. Finally, I used an abrasive sponge by hand to bring out the scratches and then sealed the finish under a two-component clear varnish. My clients influence my approach because they expect this sort of unpredictability in the final result.

Gabriele Tosi, who curated his own first solo exhibition in Bologna in 2015, said that his work “makes it impossible to distinguish between the study of the object and the study of the means used to create the object, between the study of the landscape and the study of landscape photography”.

I’m talking about the Folding Studio project, which was inspired by the idea of creating photographic sets in a natural environment. I moved around with a backpack that was essentially a folding studio, which I used to frame plants, flowers, and stones. The set was built around the subject, and not the other way around, as usually happens. I created three works – Blacktent, Neon, and BackPack – using different settings and work methods. In each of them, my work centered on isolating the subject and extrapolating it from the dynamics of the surrounding natural landscape. Placing walls around an object is a way of sharpening the focus on nature against the background of the incessant production of materials in the contemporary art world.

What are you working on at the moment?

After spending a few months archiving and cataloging my works, I recently started a new series that investigates the relationship between urban green spaces and architecture, and where the two interact. Architecture is the first of the arts since it’s so closely linked to humans. It often takes a long time to understand where a photographic series can lead. I don’t want to plan too much; I prefer to remain open to whatever changes come. My basic idea is to combine black-and-white photographs of architecture, both iconic and ordinary, and alternate them with images of urban green spaces – not necessarily landscapes, but also small details.

What does the concept of a series mean to you?

Time is enormously important in photography; it’s inherent in its nature. I don’t take spontaneous photos with a portable camera. My images need preparation and reflection: I return to the location, position the tripod, and wait for the right light conditions for my shoot. Every image is a journey.