The works will remain on view until November 15, 2025
Maggiore g.a.m. | 208 Boulevard Saint Germain – 75007 Paris
On the occasion of Paris Photo week, Galleria d’Arte Maggiore g.a.m. opens its Paris space to the photographs of Francesco Patriarca, renewing the successful format of its artistic breakfasts — recently dedicated to Giorgio Morandi, Massimo Campigli, and Claudine Drai during the last edition of Art Basel Paris. This new petit-déjeuner, scheduled for November 13, will feature the artist in conversation with Alessia Calarota. A precious opportunity for the public to discover a selection of Polaroids and emblematic prints from some of Patriarca’s most celebrated series — from “Clay”, inhabited by “clay ghosts” that seem to emerge from a distant past, to “Rooms”, where silent, uninhabited architectures unfold as stories of light.
The exhibition captures the most authentic essence of Francesco Patriarca’s poetics, built upon a delicate, intentional blur that invites viewers to look beyond the mere recognition of the photographed object, and to reflect instead on themes of light, waiting, and perception.
In the Clay series, contemporary terracotta vases appear as though they were ancient Etruscan or Greek artifacts, suspended perfectly between memory and history. In Patriarca’s practice, seriality is never repetition but breath — a way to shift the gaze from the object itself to the act of seeing. Thus, the vases find in photography a renewed presence, capable of bringing the echo of ancient myth into the contemporary moment.
Alongside this cycle, the Rooms series, created within the empty halls of Villa Giustiniani Odescalchi, presents spaces where light and shadow move like subtle presences. Doors, fireplaces, thresholds, and passages become inner architectures — not simple places but suspended presences where emptiness itself becomes a measure of time.
Patriarca’s technical approach is inseparable from the poetic tension that animates his work. The Polaroid is chosen for its intrinsic ability to preserve an alchemical force — a chemical reaction between light and matter that manifests in the tactile density of black and white, transporting the viewer into a timeless dimension. Each image is born from a slow, almost meditative process, where the photographic material becomes an integral part of the work.
As philosopher Hadrien France-Lanord writes: “These photographs transform our gaze as consumers in search of spectacular images, establishing instead a gentle visual porosity that binds us to their reality — and touches us, quite literally.”
Biographical Notes:
Born in Rome in 1974, Francesco Patriarca develops his artistic research across
photography, painting, and music. Since 2002, the year his first monograph L’appartement was published in Paris, he has exhibited in galleries, museums, and institutions across Europe, Asia, and the United States, including The Goss-Michael Foundation (Dallas), The Dactyl Foundation (New York), Fondazione Pastificio Cerere (Rome), Museo dei Mercati di Traiano (Rome), Musée Carnavalet (Paris), Rencontres Photographiques en Sud Gironde, the National Gallery of Art in Tirana, MAXXI - National Museums of the Arts of the XXI Century (Rome) , MAMbo – Museum of Modern Art of Bologna, the Royal Palace of Caserta, and Les Rencontres d’Arles. His photographs — including reportages and portraits — have appeared in publications such as International Herald Tribune, Courrier International, La Repubblica, Il Corriere della Sera, Il Giornale dell'Arte, The Observer, L'Officiel. His recent project “Clay Ghost” (2024–2025) has been presented through a series of exhibitions and events in Rome, Paris, London, New York, and Tbilisi.
Patriarca’s work emerges from personal experiences that take shape as visual narratives suspended between abstraction and figuration. Each series is a chapter in a constantly evolving archive — a mental mosaic where fragments of life brush against one another, finding new forms of balance through artistic creation. Alternating between high and low definition, sharpness and blur, his images never seek consolatory effects: rather, they are revelations, entrusting the viewer with the responsibility of interpretation and inviting them to cross into an image that presents itself as a silent presence — almost an apparition.
He lives and works in Rome.
