Roberto Pellegrinuzzi : 'Les écorchés'

Roberto Pellegrinuzzi attempts to get as close as he can to the photographic image, so as to analyse both its powers of reproduction and its material and mechanical properties. The way he approaches his subjects is modelled on scientific processes of observation, dissection and collection.

In his most recent research into macrophotography, several fragments of a face photographed centimetre by centimetre are assembled and pinned together so as to reconstitute a single image of the subject. The unusually precise detail of these magnified faces gives them a bizarre quality reminiscent of écorchés, representations of the anatomy in which the skin is peeled back and stretched out to reveal every feature of the flesh.

The truth Pellegrinuzzi is interested in is not that of the body, but that of photography. What he seeks to achieve is not scientific accuracy but a form of verisimilitude in the way the photograph renders the subject, while remaining fully aware of how the photographic medium distorts reality.

Exhibition curated by Louise Déry.


This exhibition was produced by the Galerie de l'UQAM as part of the Printemps du Québec en France. It was also sponsored by the Quebec Arts Council, the Canadian Arts Council and the Canadian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Roberto Pellegrini was born in 1958. He lives and works in Montreal.

Since the end of the 1980s, he has developed an approach to photography focusing on details of external reality transposed into images of great poetic power. He establishes an unusual relationship between the photographer and 3D space via monumental installations.

He exhibits regularly in Paris at the Galerie Patricia Dorfmann. His work has also been presented in Strasbourg, Metz, Mulhouse, Troyes, and recently at the Studio d'Arte Pino Casagrande in Rome, as part of the event entitled Orizzonte Québec.