10 Questions with Marco Lando

Marco Lando has recently shown his work at the Studio Psacaropulo Museum in Trieste (Italy), at the Site: Brooklyn Art Gallery, and at the Viridian Artists Inc., both in New York City. In his project for the city of Ravenna (Italy), presented at the NiArt Gallery in 2020, he has adapted the ancient Byzantine mosaic tradition in photo-based compositions. This project was also presented in a personal show in 2022 in Chelsea, NYC, at the Viridian Artists Inc.; he won the 2021 “Special Prize” for photography and digital art at the DeSidera Art Festival, was longlisted at the 2021 BBA Photography Prize in Berlin, and was a finalist at the 2016 WAC in Wells, UK.

www.marcolando.org | @marco_lando_art

ARTIST STATEMENT

Marco Lando's work is influenced by his New York theatre background. Combining existential plot lines, dramatic lighting, and surrealist stage design, the otherworldly mise-en-scenes he creates operate on a visceral, symbolic level. Always shot in black-and-white and manipulated digitally, his imagery explores the human psyche, eschewing the rational and moral world in favor of the unconscious and instinctual. The absence of color lends a forensic quality to the uncanny nature of the subject matter and avoids pushing it into the realm of the sensational.

Hermitic figures occupy dark and moody landscapes that recall the mystical and esoteric realms of Symbolists like Odilon Redon, William Blake, and Arnold Bocklin, along with their surrealist offspring — photographers like Raoul Ubac, Man Ray, and Hans Bellmer, who manipulated the photographic medium for a similar effect.

In the series Exile (2015 – ongoing), for example, which conjures the lost Eden of Adam and Eve, the solitary figures of a man and woman who alternately stand, crawl, and huddle amid the cold, rocky terrain of mountains are made monumental in their loneliness and despair. Contemplating their existence amid this inhospitable world, they suggest the timelessness of a spiritual abyss, where atonement and purification are forever out of reach. The post-apocalyptic realm of Alchemy (2016-ongoing) does much the same, presenting deranged aerial scenes of the heavens where architectural images, ancient and new, float amid stormy skies and portentous moons.

In "Specter of Belief", a project for the City of Ravenna, Lando has adapted the ancient Byzantine tradition of mosaic in photo-based compositions. This series references the renowned 5th and 6th-century mosaics of Ravenna, created when the city was the western capital of the Roman empire, and the contemporary Tomb of the Julii, with its mosaic depiction of Christ as a pagan sun god. Composed of loosely arranged tiles that simultaneously coalesce and break apart, the crowned figures that emerge evoke emperors and popes.

Alchemy 24, Digital Archival Print on Baryta Paper, 24x15 in, 2020 © Marco Lando

Alchemy | Project Description

The post-apocalyptic realm of Alchemy (2016-ongoing) evokes a timeless spiritual abyss where atonement and purification seem forever out of reach. Featuring elements of architecture, ancient and modern, that float amid dark moody skies, these stark black-and-white worlds evoke the loss of symbolic order. From twinkling skyscrapers to cold slabs of stone, these monuments to human progress are mysteriously set adrift in a cold, godless universe. Their fragmented, abstracted, and tilting forms seem to fall and rise in response to gravitational forces beyond their control. Like futuristic landscapes infused with the romantic sublime, the nature they conjure is a wild and fearsome one presided over by the power of the full moon. Moving through space, unmoored by gravity and purpose, they are sci-fi ruins from a defunct planet long ago forgotten.

Alchemy 65, Digital Archival Print on Baryta Paper, 24x15 in, 2021 © Marco Lando

INTERVIEW

First of all, introduce yourself to our readers. How did you start getting involved with art and, more specifically, with photography?

My name is Marco Lando, and I live and work in Padua, in the northeast part of Italy. As far as my background is concerned, I didn't study art; I had seven years of theatre experience in NYC, and certainly that plays an important role as far as my creative process is concerned, which in theatre is quite rigid, at least in my experience. In fact, in my work, it is generally a narrative that supports the process - a narrative or a meaning, something very specific that I think is strong and important for me to communicate.
As far as my motivation and inspiration are concerned, I think art has the potential of being some sort of a dangerous seed socially speaking, so artistic integrity here becomes a key factor that moves me deeply and motivates me; I always see it as a very special and precious thing because it's a quality you wouldn't expect to experience in a materialistic world.
I didn't get involved in photography in a traditional way; when I take a picture, I often have already in mind the image I want to create. In other cases, I build a scene in my studio or outdoors, and then I take the picture. My early photography projects were basically stories about social, political subversion, very simple, raw, and explicit. Getting involved with photography has been quite natural for me because I always imagined I would document these stories I have in mind as if I were a press photographer that reports from a state of turmoil.

Why did you choose photography as your medium? And what does it represent for you?

There s a reportorial quality in my work, and photography fits that quality. I'm not saying the viewer will see a reportorial character in what I do. I just think this is a key factor for me psychologically speaking, when I'm working. The viewer will probably see a surreal fantasy element instead in my images, and although it's hard for me to define surreal fantasy what I do, I am completely fine with people having their own experiences. The reportorial is not in the finished work, it's in the method; I see it as some kind of psychological device, probably an effective one.

Alchemy 41, Digital Archival Print on Baryta Paper, 24x15 in, 2020 © Marco Lando

Alchemy 81, Digital Archival Print on Baryta Paper, 24x15 in, 2021 © Marco Lando

What is your aim as an artist?

I don't see what an artist's aim could possibly be apart from being socially relevant as an artist. Art can be both spiritually elevating and unsettling at the same time, or maybe it's unsettling when it's spiritually elevating. I don't know, but you assume it can be powerful, and if it's powerful, then it's relevant and important. An artist's aim and responsibility is to create something relevant, and there's a responsibility with the fact of creating and exhibiting your art, no matter what, because your vision somehow enters somebody else's life, and you have no real control over the consequences.

You have worked and exhibited extensively, both in Italy and internationally. How would you define yourself as an artist today? And how did this definition change over the years?

You grow as an artist by exhibiting your work, and I think in time, I became better at telling what work of mine truly represents me and truly relates to what I am. I try more and more to keep my work simple, honest, and personal, and generally, I want to mirror myself in the work. In the past, I would sometime experiment for the sake of it, trying to come up with different, sophisticated projects that would come across as a little unclear and self-indulgent, at least from my perspective. But we all change and as time goes by, we sometimes see our old works with a stranger's eye.

Alchemy 32, Digital Archival Print on Baryta Paper, 24x15 in, 2017 © Marco Lando

Let's talk about your series, Alchemy. What inspired you to start this series? And what messages do you want to convey?

There was an idea that is probably the seed of the series Alchemy, and it was the idea of a violent urban scene where young protesters manifest their discontent. I started by wondering how I could artistically represent the idea of a community that repudiates the world they live in, and after a while, I imagined this community leaving the Earth instead of playing a destructive role in a conventional context. So I decided that architectural elements should represent these people, and I placed these buildings/communities in a place where they're not affected by earthly references. I saw this idea as both radically spiritual and romantic. And I started to imagine these architectural elements not being anchored to the Earth, and most of them are inhabited buildings or portions of cities moving through unknown starry skies. So it became the representation of a symbolic disorder. In the process, other themes started having an impact on the work, like, for instance, the idea of a metaphor for us, who we are, where we're going culturally, and what's our destiny as a community; moreover, I realized that I could see this project as a work portraying a search for god, and I am treating buildings as spaceships that get closer to the stars so to speak. In ancient tradition, the starry sky has been identified with divinity because it never changes. These themes are all connected to the original idea.

What do you see as the strengths of this series, both visually and conceptually?

The strengths of this series probably don't lie in the rationally planned concept but relate instead to the fact that somehow, for some mysterious reason I let an old memory play a role in the process. I used to have a daydream when I was a child. I'd imagine a trip to the end of the universe where the end was never the end; I would find a border, and I would wonder what's behind that border if I were to cross it; so I would cross that limit, and I'd still be facing a starry sky. I think it speaks truly about me, and it probably has to do with some sort of obsession I used to have with the ideas of infinite space and infinite time that we cannot grasp as we know. Only recently did I realize that this naïve daydream has been playing a role in my work and that I've been unconsciously documenting it. I guess there's some purity in a dream you used to have when you were five years old, so I think it brings some truth to the work because it reflects who I really am.

Alchemy depicts a post-apocalyptic world, and all the images are in black and white. Why did you avoid color for this series? Is there a relation between the subject and the choice of colors?

Yes, there is a reason why I don't need color. Color cannot convey the story I want to tell, at least in this particular series. In general, I take away from the image what is not needed and doesn't fit into the narrative I want to represent. In the series Alchemy, there is already a strong beyond-the-ordinary quality. In my opinion, adding colors or - should I say - leaving colors where they are already would not bring truth and authenticity to the image. I'm afraid it would only make it sensational and showy without adding anything substantial.

Is there anything else you would like to experiment with? What do you think of digital art and NFTs?

I just finished my first video. I've been thinking for a while that Alchemy conceptually has a good potential to be taken in that direction as well; it's been like making the series literal and explicit. At the same time, the soundtrack has been a tool to explore new themes and potential. I consider NFT an opportunity, a tool, and a potential for democratizing art.
Most of the time, dematerialized art is the starting point for me, so I don't even have to force my work to adapt to the digital work. As I said, it's digital most of the time from the very beginning. That said, although the artistic value can be brought to life by the right medium, it has nothing to do with it.

Alchemy 62, Digital Archival Print on Baryta Paper, 24x15 in, 2021 © Marco Lando

Alchemy 95, Digital Archival Print on Baryta Paper, 24x15 in, 2020 © Marco Lando

And what are your thoughts on digital presentations and online exhibitions? Did you take advantage of these new forms of promotions over the past couple of years to present your work to a broader audience?

I did, and I am still doing it. It definitely is giving artists the opportunity to be reached by wider audiences in times when there are limitations which is what happened recently. My personal show exhibiting now in NYC at the Viridian Artists Inc. is presented digitally online as well. Photography and digital art probably take more advantage of these new forms of promotions than say painters and sculptors, although we must take into consideration that as a photographer, you have less control over the medium. You have no idea how monitors around the world display your work while you have full control over the printing process and the physical presentation.

Finally, what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting about exhibitions or future projects you want to tell us about?

I've been working for a while on a reinterpretation of religious images, the ones describing some episodes of the incarnation narrative: annunciation, nativity, passion. The idea consists in testing those images by changing a little the religious narrative that is familiar to us.
I was always fascinated by how a religious narrative, generation after generation, shapes and makes a community what it is, and by the images telling the story; have they gained legitimacy and power over time, or have they always been in our minds in some archaic form?
When you approach tradition as an artist, you face problems and constraints you normally wouldn't expect when working in contemporary art, where you can basically question everything.

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