JEST

From my family photographic archive
from 1870s until now.
This book is full of true lies.

Ok, understood so far. Ilaria Turba deals with the archives of her Italian family, with pictures dating from 1870 to the present time. Hmmm, but didn´t we have that already? Yes we had. But we did not have anything like JEST. Miss Turba has not sorted thematically or chronologically, nor is there any story. What happens here is something completely different, something magical - and essentially photographic.

Just as people open and present themselves in front of the camera and show up in all their inconsistency, when they feel genuine interest, these pictures, freed from the cardboard boxes and albums, out of pure gratitude for the fact that someone looks at them with so much dedication and love, pull out all the stops. They dance, they dress up, they celebrate an intercontinental fancy-ball and they reveal secrets.

›Hey, don´t you think I look much better like this.‹
Shouts the boy on the beach, when only his shadow is left.

›Also an option.‹
Shouts the soldier, who simply turns around during the march to the front.

›Look what I´m able of.‹
Shouts the Leaning Tower turning a cartwheel.

Ilaria Turba has let them do it, the pictures, and then joined in herself. Authenic or not? ›What makes the difference?‹, the pictures shout, ›just think it over.‹ A fabulous mystery book in which pranksters and profundities shake hands someway back in history.

I have not seen anything like that.