Gabriele Croppi

Calm and powerful appear the metropoles of New York and Rome - freed from the hectic activity and constant noise. Gabriele Croppi's works, which became famous under the title Metaphysics of an Urban Landscape, reveal the essence of famous world cities. The Italian artist reduces them to their fundamental characteristics and lets the superfluous details disappear. Croppi creates space in places where it usually cannot be found, enabling the viewer to fill it in with pieces of their own individuality. Upon looking at his work, the viewer can unfold their own ideas, feelings, and dreams and flood them into the cities of New York and Rome.

The strong contrast of the black-and-white photos create an incredible radiance – there are no gray areas, no doubts. Being and non-being appear side by side, a juxtaposition that creates clarity, distinctness, and difference. His work opens new perspectives on motifs that are actually already familiar to the viewer. We see the big cities as exaggerations of themselves. We consider the remarkable, famous architecture, but also the individuals and the cars. As if in a dream, everything stands still - as though the cosmopolitan cities were lost in thought, pausing for a moment to reflect on their own existence. Gabriele Croppi's photography follows the Italian tradition of metaphysical painting, a style of painting that was made famous in the first half of the 20th century, especially by the works of Giorgio di Chirico. The reduction of forms and surfaces is an essential characteristic in those paintings and Croppi successfully reinterprets that concept and applies it to modern motifs by means of photography. He is a pioneer of photographic art that explores new paths and broadens horizons.

Gabriele Croppi studied photography at the Istituto Italiano di Fotografia in Milan. He works in the field of photography and film and is particularly interested in the interdisciplinarity between photography and other art forms, such as painting, literature, film, and architecture. In 2012 his photographic essay Metaphysics of an Urban Landscape was awarded first prize at the International Photo Prizes in the Architecture - Buildings category.