From My Photobook Library: Nicolo Degiorgis

Çiğdem İrem İleri
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I would like to talk about Nicolo Degiorgis, a name that I think should not be omitted while discussing photobooks. When we think of photobooks as a chosen medium, to present selected photographs from alternatives, this is a name that we can clearly see why selects this medium in particular. I also think that the process for this artist started with the motivation of preparing a photobook, not with the motivation of taking photographs. As such, I can argue that in some of his books, photographs alone or in any other style of presentation cannot attain this meaning and effect. Of course, there are examples that are followed by these relatively general and powerful statements of mine.

Let's start with the book that he named as "Peak". The book consists of 90 black-and-white photographs placed in book format, photographs of various mountain peaks in Northeast Italy, which are shot from the same angle such that almost from the absence axis. In this journey, starting from absolute black, from nothingness, Nicolo Degiorgis leads us to absolute white, among the mountain peaks reaching another absence by becoming increasingly sparse. From the lack of detail in the dark to a thousand shades of gray, and from there to the fading of the white, and then we "disappear". Some kind of disappearance... The image wanes in white and is lost in the middle of the book to reach white. From the middle of the book a thick, black rubber that combines a slippery, even irregular (but in fact very elaborate and detailed in order) editing; This flow is accompanied by a design which is composed of paper, size, print, and an untelling word. A design which is more than simple, rich in its rarity and reproductive. In the second half of the book, a second journey starts in white and continues with again, different shades of gray and ends in black; after that journey, we leave its world. The way the book is folded, the cut size of the pages is like a companion to the "peak" loneliness in the photographs. Without knowing where in existence or absence, perhaps we will return to the lives that we are familiar with, with the incredible confusion of not being able to learn at all and once again recall the sentence that a prisoner told to the Swedish photographer Anders Petersen: "I am sharpening my pyramid."


In his other book "Hidden Islam", we pass from existentialism to questioning the ethics of society. In this book, Degiorgis discusses a common case all over Europe -the case of Muslim communities using places like garages, warehouses, and discos etc. as places of worship because of the scarcity of mosques- with the example of it in Northern Italy. Photography is used as a means of social documentation rather for personal purposes in this book. As can be seen in the "contents" section; closed spaces which are at first glance, part of the daily routine of European society such as warehouses, shops, supermarkets, apartments, stadiums, sports centers, garages; are documented as perhaps the unlikely places of "invisible" Islam, an invisibility which is implied by the name of the book. At first peek, even if the book evokes the idea that architectural structures are documented as a successful photography work with a unique aesthetic approach; when the journey of the book begins, it becomes more personal, colorful and layered. Regarding this, the most important point that makes the book so special is the effective book design that serves the book's argument. When you continue your journey with the book that welcomes the audience with its black-and-white, outdoor photographs which emphasize the ordinariness of the spaces converted into places of worship; and when you notice the folded pages on the right side; you may feel that the doors of another world that is unknown to you, is "hidden" and will begin to be opened further. You are not mistaken. The enlivening of the black-and-white journey as we go from the outside to the inner worlds, on one hand, evokes the idea "Nothing is as it seems.", while on the other hand, makes us see that, through the colored photographs contained in these "hidden" pages, Degiorgis managed to show the audience the unknown faces of a culture, particularly the decoration and Islamic motifs of the places worshiping Muslims use