EVERY TUESDAY OF JANUARY AND FEBRUARY WE WILL BE CLOSED TO WORK ON THE INVENTORY!
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June 2023

ExhibitionPresentation Thursday, June 8th, 7 pm,

Kashi, by Tilby Vattard

“Varanasi, formerly known as Kashi, is a multi-thousand-year-old city in northern India. In a peaceful antagonism, spiritual fervor rubs shoulders with the race to modernity. Here, a sacred fire has been burning for over three thousand years, carrying the bodies of the dead in its smoke towards Moksha, deliverance from the cycle of rebirths. For me, photography is an act that involves the body and the mind, it’s a meditation. And Varanasi, the spiritual capital of India, invites introspection. Every day, determined to go beyond appearances and capture the soul of this city, I wander relentlessly through its maze of alleyways. Instinctively, my working perimeter is reduced to the oldest part of the city. This space – an inextricable labyrinth of ruined temples and palaces – is home to a mythical world woven of spells. In this theater of apparitions, I excavate the material of the streets to extract a few moments.

The city evokes an in-between space where time stands still, and people wait to cross over to the other side of life.Far from constituting a documentary corpus, the photographs I’ve collected over the years bear witness to my inner mythology.”

Tilby Vattard

“India is almost always a pitfall for European photographers, caught in the trap of seduction, exoticism and disorientation, the shimmer of colors or the beauty of the inhabitants. They bring back postcards of Westerners fascinated – and somewhat misled – by the splendor or the misery, with, in the end, surface looks. Nothing comparable here. “Kashi” exerts a kind of spell. It doesn’t matter whether Tilby Vattard’s photographs are faithful to reality or not. We lose ourselves in them as if in a dream, peopled by furtive silhouettes, disquieting vapors, children under some kind of spell, suspended gestures, animals transformed into mythological creatures. It’s all about myths and legends, sacrifice, initiation and communion.”

Caroline Bénichou

Hours and Infos

From June 8th to July 28th

Leporello, Via del Pigneto, 162/e – Roma
info@leporello-books.com