My Beautiful DISCO, A project by Luca Saini curated by Olga Gambari.
Work In Progress.
Everything was born from a simple idea, and precisely because of this it was effective. From 2006 until today, the photographer and artist from Turin Luca Saini has realized 777 portraits, each one depicting a person with his or her favourite record. A vinyl record of course: microgroove 78’s, 45’s or 33 rpm; “a round disk with a spiral groove for the reproduction of sounds”. An object which is in no way becoming extinct, on the contrary, it is living a small yet constant revival. this format is an ever-increasing status for connoisseurs and true music lovers.
One person, one record and one single magenta-red backdrop are the main characters of this project. A strongly desired series that became a little less rigorous in the ways with which the photographer and the photographed subject - confronting one another even for a long time before the shooting - have discovered as a way of personalizing the session: an object, a garment, a position, an expression.
What comes out of this Today is a journey – which started with the American underground punk of Zen Arcade by Hüsker Dü, and ended with the classic record Rimmel by Francesco De Gregori. The project was born through the simple word-of-mouth between friends at the studio of Saini in the area of Balon, the multiethnic heart of Turin. It then became, as it went along, an itinerant work in progress with exhibitions and sessions that were open to the public (in every sense: it was possible to see a selection of the portraits which were already produced, to watch the artist at work and more than anything to be photographed with one’s own favourite record). The project was carried out also in Milan, Genoa, Palermo, Cagliari, Bologna and Rome.
A long journey during which numerous alternative journeys interweaved, journeys that each one of us could combine to his or her own pleasure: the history of music, the history of design connected to it, the chronicle of the various youth cultures that were born or have arrived in Italy during the past few decades and their human types, the predictable and the surprising choices, well-known faces (Arturo Brachetti, Trio Medusa, Eva Robin’s, members of successful bands such as Subsonica, Linea 77, Nina Zilli Afterhours, Marlene Kuntz, Velvet…) and unknown faces, all placed one next to the other without any distinction, connected only by their private emotion for music.
This is the most important celebration that has come to light though MY BEAUTIFUL DISCO: the celebration of the passion of each one of us, whether this is explicit or hidden somewhere in our history. The act of love towards the relationship that binds a person to an object and its contents: the sounds, the words, the images. In other words a tribute to the music that changes lives. Possibly for the better, and with the bonus of a nice record cover.
more: www.lucasaini.com
