Light

We've already seen a few photos here and there. In the 1983 monograph, in the worthy and pioneering series I Grandi Fotografi, even on covers and inside books-few, but meaningful choices. Then, in some commissioned works, especially the 1985 ones-extraordinary, dedicated to the great Neapolitan baroque period (the centrality of which within the artist's evolution is not only chronological, seeing that this close encounter underpins the very foundations of his artistic language). These, as well, were but a handful. In any event, a marginal presence, an exception that proves the rule-such that it seems as if a chapter had never been opened, an anomaly that shouldn't be paid much attention to. And yet, as early as that distant, successful monograph, Mimmo Jodice answered a precise question with another question: "Is there a difference between black and white and color?" And yet, those who are accustomed, even every now and then, to hanging around photographers' studios are well acquainted with the principle according to which whatever is printed and published is always a minimal part of what is photographed, and archives are always a (more or less) inexhaustible source of surprises, of never-before-seen proof, of roads taken but later abandoned for reasons of all kinds, of projects that remain but a dream until that day when . . .