Overview

“First, entering the circus, there… we always come across the double gate, behind which stands the keeper of the Circus observing us from a crystal ball
… … …
Look at me: I am the mistress of gymnasts, clowns, young girls – jumping and flying. They are all my toys, just for my delight, but I let you come in anyway.”      

Ramón Gómez de la Serna, “El Circo” – 1917

My work about the circus started in 1997 in Milan; sharing the journeys of three Italian circus families: the Franchetti (Circus Barcellona), the Casartelli (Medrano) and the Togni (Darix Togni and American Circus). Year after year, I was able to see new things through the perspective of the caravan’s life. The bonds forged inside a circus family became familiar to me.

Sometimes the big top was transforming itself; becoming a magical entity and disclosing an unexpected reality, while revealing to the circus children their own craft and destiny.

As Fellini said: “… the acrobat, the magician and the lion trainer represent eternal values: force, courage, rigor, physical ability.” But the clown is making fun of everything, and questioning the human being about the fragility and absurdity of life.

Stepping through the entrance into the circus is, in a way, as if I am stepping through a small door into my childhood.

A monograph by the title: “Il Circo” by Leo Pellegatta with aphorism of the surrealist Spanish writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna was presented at Utrecht / NowIdea in Tokyo & N.Y. Art Book Fair in 2009. The book is also featuring a short story by Japanese writer Shinji Ishii and has been published in 1.500 copies + 50 limited editions.

Tropical Tree is a multimedia project inspired by the 1960`s play Nettaiju by Yukio Mishima.
In this play a tragic drama takes place amid the uncluttered minimalist setting of a Japanese garden, inside of which a mysterious tropical tree is rising outrageously.
Drawing upon abstract dialogues and memories, Mishima creates a story where nature stands as a mirror for the people`s feelings and passions.

Throughout a filmic and musical undertaking and the cooperation between visual artist Leo Pellegatta and composer Nicol Faer, the project evolved with the aim to open up Mishima`s literary work to an imaginary landscape and extend the horizon to several themes and allegories associated with the tree.

Tropical Tree has been presented as a multi-media installation and as an innovative form of musical theater, in gallery spaces and outdoor art festivals, exploring the dialogue between photography, cinema, improvised music and performance.

One of the main impulses of the idea has been the desire to bring together in a creative exchange and performance, artists from different cultures, backgrounds and practices.
For instance, the richness of the meeting with Japanese culture allowed assimilating in the project elements of ancestral disciplines such as Shôdo, Ikebana and Gagaku, as well as contemporary radical forms of expression like Butoh.

Several photographs created for the Tropical Tree, have been taken with a sequence photography camera.
In this way the project wishes to be as well, an ode to the pioneering artistic experiments made at the birth of silent cinema.

Unveiled at Gallery ef in Tokyo in 2006, Indefinite Path speaks about a poetic journey and reflects an atlas of intimate landscapes between Japan and Europe.
A delicate sensitive shade floats on the surface of the images, the state of things changes: the landscape, the memory and the color of things appear in a way closer to feelings and entwined with the light and the moment of life.

A monograph with photographs by Leo Pellegatta and a short text by author Ishii Shinji was published in 250 copies + 10 limited editions in collaboration with the Japanese fashion designer RouRou and presented during the opening show at Gallery ef .

Words following images, following colours, following places … and indefinite memories, indefinite paths. Everything is in motion, becoming.
We all have our own vision of reality, and reality is transforming itself in every single moment …

Many of the photographs in “Requiem” depict air travel between Europe and Japan: land, air, sea and people seen from above, as well as an emotional state tied to memories seen across two countries and geographical spaces apart from each other.

I have always been interested in the way our memory is tied to the landscape we occupy specially, when we are moving through in-between places. When I began this project, I was on a plane, flying between Japan and Europe, going to visit a loved one on the brink between life and death. My son was also about to be born during the same period.  So, I began to reflect on this special dimension, suspended between water, sky and earth, as if, in flight, one could experience a new view of the world, observing and greeting life, both for the first and last time.