Pino Settanni

The following interview was conducted thanks to the availability of Monique Gregory Settanni.

What type of printing did Pino prefer?

Most of his major works are Kristal, prints on photographic paper sandwiched between a plexiglass panel on the front and a Dbond panel on the back.

It is a printing process particularly suited to large formats, an example of which is the series of works on the women of Kabul which have reached dimensions of 150x100cm.

These prints have been left “live”, unframed, with spacers that create a slightly three-dimensional effect, detaching the images from the wall by a few centimetres.

The Lux-Art print was instead used to create the works for the Roman exhibition organized by the Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, an event that unfortunately Pino was unable to see.

Did the idea come first, or was it the fascination with the material? That is, did the artistic/photographic project come first, or was it inspired by the techniques and particular processes that had struck you?

I don’t know, but I can tell you that when Pino had an idea in his head, he had to make it happen at all costs. He was a very kind man, everyone thought so, but he was also very firm and determined,   sometimes tough, you might say.

There was never anything he loved more than his work.

 

Did he have any Masters of reference that he looked up to, that he felt close to?

Pino adored Caravaggio and Rembrandt, the masters of light.

For him, Caravaggio was the best, an immense artist who knew how to make his characters emerge from the shadows.

These painters also inspired his use of red and black, which are very recurring colours in his photographs.

The best example to understand his infinite admiration for these great masters is the shot Pino took of Monicelli, the extreme close-up with a red cloth over his head, portraying him as if he were a Renaissance monk, a mystic from the past.

Observing Pino’s works, I noticed the presence of a synergistic dualism between the concepts of presentation and representation, which generally give rise to different approaches to the very concept of art, but which in his work manage to coexist harmoniously.

In “Tarot” I see allegories, paintings wedged between the tradition of icons or miniatures and the Transavanguardia.

Works that express the essence of the Tarot’s message through the intense individuality of the characters who, as Settanni himself emphasizes, are real people, introduced into an esoteric situation and then photographed.

Looking at “Portraits in Black with Object,” I notice how Pino managed to take a step back with the precise aim of placing the focus on the models in the shot, accompanied by fetish objects of their choice which, like underlining in a text, enhance specific characteristics and inclinations of the protagonists.

Finally Pino did what I found most difficult: merging art and reportage photography.

In the “Kabul” series we find shots showing Afghan women in the traditional burqa, which however liquefies, spreading like oil in water, blending together and covering everything.

The context is no longer landscape or place, now it is composed only of fluid stains and sinuous brushstrokes of color.

Could Monique tell us about Pino, about his being suspended between photographic reality and imagination, about how he thought about Photography, the medium of mimesis of reality par excellence, to create the suggestions he gave us?

Pino was interested in a person’s soul.

Each of his portraits was the result of long introductory sessions, he wanted to establish a true and sincere relationship with people to wait for The Photograph, the right expression, the revealing moment and he shot only then.

I remember that for the portrait of Federico Fellini an almost surreal situation was created: Pino was behind the camera waiting to take the shot and Fellini, meanwhile, was drawing Pino with colored pencils.

They were portraying each other.

Pino was a multifaceted artist, a painter, a draftsman with the colors of the Mediterranean in his eyes, after all he was from Puglia.

The Tarot series is proof of this: he designed them all himself, giving shape to what would later become photographs.

Pino also worked frequently for the Italian Army, as a war photographer on various expeditions.

The experience in Afghanistan, above all, made him mature a lot.

The women she portrayed loved their burqas, they didn’t experience them as a prison.

They were very colorful items of clothing that Pino   then worked and retouched on the computer, finely, to convey and emphasize the confident elegance of the women of Kabul.

 

 

Are there any exhibitions or events planned featuring Pino Settanni’s work?

Hoping for better times, an exhibition should be planned in Taranto, his city, to commemorate his work ten years after his death.

I’m also writing a book for the Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, in collaboration with a RAI journalist, to tell the story of Pino as a man.

He truly had an extraordinary life that deserves to be told.

A book about the man he was, as well as the artist he was.