Abuse II: The Uncanny

Still life – in English this term evokes the prosaic image of fruit bowls and tables, it lacks the emotional depth that the Romance languages give it, where in French it’s named ‘nature morte’, in Italian ‘natura morta’ – dead nature. Still life was the subject of Italian fashion photographer Alessio Bolzoni’s first book, ABUSE, in which he collected flowers, cut them, and kept them alive for six months before photographing them withered and dessicated, presenting a meditation on witnessing the moment of death. His second book, ABUSE II: THE UNCANNY (Self-published, 2019), again concerns suspended vitality, this time turning its focus to human subjects.

Bolzoni presents images that aren’t too far from his commercial work. In THE UNCANNY he draws on his extensive experience of fashion shoots for Dior Homme, Kris Van Assche, Louis Vuitton, and Adidas to present a collection of young streetwear models posing in the studio. But there’s something unseemly about these people. In each picture they lie contorted, their faces more or less obscured, legs wrapped over arms, backs arched, their weight supported on finger tips.