by Halfway through our interview, I tell Alessio Bolzoni that he is unusual: a fashion photographer without ego. He snorts with laughter. “You can’t do the work and share it with people without a little bit of ego,” he says. “But I try to talk to him and work with him.”
Bolzoni’s ego has certainly been stroked recently: he worked on campaigns for the modern brand Miu Miu and took some very bright and sexy shots on the court of Zendaya, Mike Fist and Josh O’Connor to film promoting Luca Guadagnino’s stylish tennis. Challengers. But alongside this, the Italian-born photographer also produces artwork. An exhibition, There’s a Fine Line Between Love and Hate, You See, opens this month at VO Curations gallery in London.
The art scene in Italy is very weak – the bad decades of Berlusconi destroyed what was great
Bolzoni’s fashion work, with its exciting situations and contrasting backgrounds, could be described as whimsical and artistic, while at the same time making clothes look very good. In contrast, in his artwork, he goes deep with high-minded statements and references, to Sigmund Freud, Slavoj Žižek and many others. Take the Accumulo diptych series, which combines found images and newspaper pictures of crucified people to show their feet. “My focus,” he says, “was people walking. Then I realized that the part that was interesting to me was the legs. It was magical to find details that match perfectly – the position of the foot or the same shade.”
The title of the work refers to a wider theme for Bolzoni: the images we are now surrounded by. “It’s crazy, over the top. A series of images every day.” Although he is, of course, contributing to this explosion, his artworks mostly incorporate found imagery. On Ebay, another series, there are collages made from photos of a family from the 1950s found on the online market.
“Photography is infused with reality,” he says “which is fascinating, but also very limited. We have to bend that boundary.” He cites Roni Horn and Anne Collier as influences and likes to take “visual notes” – snapshots on his iPhone of things that catch his eye. The last picture he took is a slightly surreal image captured on a sunny London street. At first glance, the object looks like a sculpture, or a giant piece of discarded chewing gum, but it’s actually a wrinkled white T-shirt.
Play makes sense for Bolzoni’s interest in the uncanny – an idea that feels more relevant than ever in a digital world where things are often not what they seem. “It’s something I like to play with,” he says. “It’s never a pleasant image. I want you to feel something. I want you to participate – and respond.”
He takes a sip of his tea, which is served from a silver teapot in this highly regarded Marylebone hotel. Now based in London, after living in Paris, the 44-year-old is dressed in the fashion photographer’s uniform of an artfully rumbled shirt and chunky trainers (Rankin wears something similar, as does Juergen Teller, though that his trainers are paired with neon shorts) . He reveals how, even with his artwork, he remains immersed in fashion: he was excited to work with Miu Miu stylist Lotta Volkova and describes Guadagnino as a “brother”. Is fashion glamorous? “When you are shooting out on the street, sweating in 40 degrees – no.” He laughs and says: “But it’s fun. You meet amazing people.”
Bolzoni is from Crema, near Milan. He first became interested in photography as a teenager. He was educated by his art teacher and owner of a 24-hour shop. His interest in found imagery also started early – with a metal box his grandmother had, full of family photos. Using his darkroom, he reprinted these from the negatives, framing them for a Christmas present.
Bolzoni’s career took off in the 2010s, when he began working with brands such as Kris Van Assche and Phillip Lim, making him a relatively late bloomer – he had just entered his 30s – in an industry that was obsessed with youth. It was imperative to leave Italy. “I had limitations there,” he says. “The art scene is very weak. The bad years of Berlusconi – they destroyed what was great in Italy, from after the war up to the 60’s and 70’s. From the 80s onwards, everything was lost.”
He returned to Milan at the beginning of the pandemic. The event resulted in one of Bolzoni’s favorite projects – Abuse 2018, featuring portraits of people making complex associations, their faces hidden – gaining more attention. He urged billboard owners to display these photos instead of advertisements. “This is an idea I had when I was in school,” he says. “It was very emotional to drive through the city and see these bodies coming out of buildings. You grab one and wonder, ‘What’s that?’ I didn’t put my name on them, though. There is no explanation. You take from them what you need.”
The same applies to all his artwork. “There are no solutions, there is no position,” he says. The care taken by Bolzoni not to be down to one side also extends to the world of fashion. When I ask what other brands he would like to work with, he says: “I didn’t get an answer to that. You have to be very political, very grateful to the people who call you, who ask to work with you. I never accept it.”
• There’s a Fine Line Between Love and Hate, You See at VO Curations, London, from 21 June to 6 July
