What makes the work of sculptor Medardo Rosso so remarkable is his vision. He wanted to capture what is fleeting and ephemeral. To achieve this, he continuously produced new versions and casts of his sculptures. For instance, he made eleven variants of Ecco Puer (1906) in different materials, driven by his constant dissatisfaction with the immateriality of the piece. His goal was to create a vision of purity within a banal world.
You could compare his method to a game of whispers: a sentence passed from ear to ear, losing a little of its original meaning each time. That is exactly what happened with Rosso’s work — it evolved from naturalistic to impressionistic.
Photography became part of this analytical process. By reworking his own photographs of his sculptures — through cropping, reprinting, and manipulating light — Rosso created delicate impressions on paper that conveyed a unique beauty and vulnerability. He didn’t use photography to document reality, but to deepen and refine his artistic vision.
Josef Albers also integrated photography into his artistic practice. During his travels with his wife Anni, he photographed impressions that later became part of photo collages. These served not only as travel mementos but also as studies in pattern, structure, and volume. By mounting the photographs on identical cardboard sheets, he elevated them to the level of a reference archive — or perhaps a visual sketchbook. The impressions gathered on these journeys are visible in the work of both Josef and Anni Albers.
In my own practice, artistic research often revolves around the use of colour. My work One Week (part of the book Sequences) emerged from this exploration. It’s a diary in colour — a series of photographs made up entirely of colour fields, each hue representing an activity from that day.
At times, this research leads me to remove colour altogether, reducing the image to black and white. At other moments, I bring colour back, layering it over the image—and immediately ask myself: what purpose does it serve, or is it just sheer beauty?
The photograph above comes from the working process that eventually led to my book The Complete Collection.
📷 Medardo Rosso – Artforum
📷 Josef Albers – The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation
📘 One Week from Sequences