Franco Vimercati

Franco Vimercati was a conceptual photographer born in Milan in 1940 who devoted almost 30 years to exploring the potential of photography as a medium of expression. After studying at the Academy of Brera, he abandoned painting in 1963 to focus entirely on photography. His first body of work, "Sulle Langhe" (1973), features simple and sober portraits in which the artist "avoids getting beyond the possibilities of what photography really is," as art critic Paolo Fossati noted.

Throughout the 1970s, Vimercati became increasingly radical in his artistic statements. In 1975, he created a series of photographs depicting 36 bottles of "Levissima" mineral water. While substantially identical, the bottles differed only through subtle details. In 1977, he captured images of parquet listels, and in 1978, he produced a cycle of six "tondi" featuring a soup bowl with a twisted paper bag. 

In 1995, Vimercati turned his lens to everyday objects like a glass, a bottle, a tin, and a coffee machine, photographing them upside down, as seen through the camera. The resulting series was sharp and concise, with each object transformed into an abstract form. The following year, Vimercati further experimented by bringing the same objects out of focus, creating pure imprints of light. These images were larger in size, as the artist believed they needed to "shine."

In 1997, Vimercati returned to producing highly sharp images, and the resulting series juxtaposed these with his out-of-focus works, creating a dialogue between the two approaches. Throughout his career, Vimercati avoided capturing the ephemeral, instead favoring the lasting strength and intensity of the everyday objects he photographed.