Maria Vittoria Backhaus
Like a game photography is a Life Elixir
Foto Davide Mosconi
Maria Vittoria Backhaus loves to break the rules. She learned how to do it very early and it's been her fortune because breaking the rules has led her very far.
As Isa Tutino Vercelloni (former director of Casa Vogue) writes in the text that we publish "...sometimes Maria Vittoria went so far ahead that she anticipated the times, practicing trash photography when nobody knew what it was, inventing polaroids collages (for a Vogue Pelle cover) well before David Hockney, ... or proposing an image inspired by cosmetic surgery ten years before Steven Meisel."
In the evolution of still life and interior design photography in Italy Maria Vittoria has had a leading role, she was the trailblazer.
Trash, post-modern, serialization, Maria Vittoria has unwittingly anticipated and traveled many roads before they were encoded by the editorial system, she did so just because it amused her, like she was playing a game.
As Maria Vittoria puts it the rule of the game is "finding concealed beauty into ugliness", rather than a quest for aesthetic balance or perfect composition, searching for beauty into ugliness is fun. It's therefore useless to try to understand her reasons for photographing small dinosaurs or leaves of prickly pears or why she decided to document, in sx70 polaroids, vacant environments or skulls and horns. Asking is useless because her answer is invariably "Because it's beautiful, it's funny."
And of course she's right. Living photography as a game keeps you young. Returning from Filicudi, the island where Maria Vittoria spends long periods of time, she explained me how she managed to finally heal from a long and troublesome influence when she decided to start a new photo project on the inhabitants of the island. Photography is a medicine, a long life elixir.
For LateAndModern Maria Vittoria selected a series of fascinating 90's vintage prints on Opuntiaes, a splendid job on the world of soap operas in Rome in the 60's as well as censored works, some polaroid travel notes and more.
I met Maria Vittoria several years before I contacted her to work for Casa Vogue (the design, architecture, and life style magazine with which I had been involved for a quarter century, but which had only just been conceived at the time). When I first encountered her she was a little devil, with a strong sense of humour and initiative. She had an intense expression under dark curls, with wide black eyes which gave the impression of knowing how to look into and beyond everything. Politically committed, she had just begun work as a press photographer, thanks to a journalist friend we had in common, Guido Vergani, who sent her, amongst other places, to Paris to report on student barricades. Other reportages investigated factory life, the working class, Sardinian bandits and vagrants... one of her most successful coverages was the backstage of a photo-story in Rome: scenes which seem to have been taken – says Maria Vittoria – from a “poor people’s Antonioni”. What does all this have to do with furniture and Casa Vogue? The objective of my magazine was to transpose the winning formula already experimented in the world of fashion by the international publishing house – Condé Nast - to the field of design: to entrust the task of incrementing the value of the products illustrated to the mastery of great photographers. I was never short of prestigious names from the start: Aldo Ballo and Ugo Mulas, to quote just two. There was also space for the young to evolve alongside the virtuosos, with the freshness and creativity of their experimentation. Maria Vittoria was highly gifted in this respect: her “still life” photographs were always brimming with creative energy, and the vitality which suffuses them is far from “still”. Her images do not just record the object in question, but become protagonists or sometimes second leads of a story, often amusing, in any case ironic or intriguing, with scenic settings showing situations open to various different outcomes. Thus the Enzo Mari table for Driade was transformed into an insect collected by a giant entomologist; or a grassy sod into a virgin forest, the pad of a prickly pear into a languishing fish, a porous rock into Godzilla’s habitat. Often this transformation occurred by changing scale; at other times with less explicit allusions to a parallel world. Seductive pairs of legs without owners emerge from beneath a group of bistro tables. The Flexform sofas come alive and acquire personality thanks to strange female presences. Fashion (in the meantime Maria Vittoria had made a appearance in this field too) had become situational; a dinner service became a pretext for postprandial Spoerri images. A cauliflower in bud became a lump of life, a promise of irresistible strength.
Naturally, the challenge has always been to outstrip oneself, to go one step further, to push oneself even more ... in this way Maria Vittoria was often well ahead of her time, using trash before anyone else knew what it was, inventing collages with series of polaroid photographs (for a Vogue Pelle cover) long before David Hockney; or to propose an image inspired by plastic surgery ten years before Steven Meisel. Too soon in some cases: so occasionally some of her creations were refused. At this point, it is reasonable to ask where her secret lies. Maria Vittoria never studied photography and enjoys describing herself as a “dilettante”, immediately emphasising the sense of “delight” implied in the word, since she certainly loves her work and has always derived pleasure and even entertainment from it (this is already the first part of the secret), otherwise she would not have been able to communicate it to others. Her vision is not the literal one of a reporter who captures attitudes or events from the magma of everyday life, thus presuming to reconcile the interests of the profession and the value of information: namely, trade and truth. Nor does she allow her vision to be seduced by the fascination of portrayal as an aesthetic task. On the contrary, the stronger the challenge of representation, the further Maria Vittoria’s vision diverges from a pre-arranged scene, and turns to other means, penetrating the fabric where it is densest and encounters other materialisations. Thus the world she portrays is also called into question, revoked. It is not only the unconventionality of a search which, “ from barricades to the luxuries of fashion”, has kept the rigour of professional conscience, which is also sociological criticism not to be taken for granted, together with a mischievous taste for play. Not to mention art, which would have been appropriate. Maria Vittoria would not like that.
So, amongst Aeolian herbariums, flowery saints, supermodels and rock cribs, her fantasy and her enviable vital energy wander through possible worlds, creating space for new adventures and facing unpredictable situations. The levels of reality are multiplied, so to speak. For this reason her photographs, even the most minimal, nurture forests of meanings and often assume fairy-tale styles, although rooted in an explicit sensation of the concrete.
Isa Tutino Vercelloni
Maria Vittoria Backhaus Prints Series
Notes on the prints
Maria Vittoria Backhaus's prints are dated, signed and certified by the author. Modern prints edition, unless where expressly noted, are produced in the declared number plus three artist's proofs.
Fotoromanzo
The backstage of the shooting of "Fotoromanzi" (romantic illustrated soap operas) in Rome in the 60's.B/W modern prints, numbered edition on Silver Gelatine paper.
Fotoromanzo, 1963
Fotoromanzo, 1963
Fotoromanzo, 1963
Fotoromanzo, 1963
Fotoromanzo, 1963
Fotoromanzo, 1963
Fotoromanzo, 1963
Fotoromanzo, 1963
Hands
Originally shot for Italian Vogue Pelle this work was initially refused and eventually published with censored parts.Modern giclée prints, numbered edition on glossy paper.
Hands, 2000
Hands, 2000
Hands, 2000
Hands, 2000
Hands, 2000
Dinosauri
Black and white images of dinosaurs in a sicilian landscape.B/W modern prints, numbered edition on Silver Gelatine paper.
Dinosauri, 1998
Dinosauri, 1998
Dinosauri, 1998
Dinosauri, 1998
Dinosauri, 1998
Dinosauri, 1998
Dinosauri, 1998
Opuntiae et al.
Opuntiae, cactus and aloe plants from the island of Filicudi, Sicily.Vintage prints on warm Ektalure paper
Opuntiae et al., 1994
Opuntiae et al., 1992
Opuntiae et al., 1994
Opuntiae et al., 1994
Opuntiae et al., 1994
Opuntiae et al., 1995
Opuntiae et al., 1994
Opuntiae et al., 1997
Opuntiae et al., 1993
Opuntiae et al., 1996
Opuntiae et al., 1995
Opuntiae et al., 1995
Opuntiae et al., 1994
Opuntiae et al., 1995
A Paris Suite
A polaroid sketchbook from a trip to Paris.Enlarged print of SX70 original, includes original borders.
Boxset of 4 modern giclée prints, numbered edition on Posterboard Matte Extra
A Paris Suite, 2000
A Paris Suite, 2000
A Paris Suite, 2000
A Paris Suite, 2000
MM milano
A polaroid sketchbook about the Milan subway.Enlarged print of SX70 original, includes original borders.
Boxset of 4 modern giclée prints, numbered edition on Posterboard Matte Extra
MM milano, 1999
MM milano, 1999
MM milano, 1999
MM milano, 1999
Napoli
A polaroid sketchbook from a trip to Naples.Enlarged print of SX70 original, includes original borders.
Boxset of 4 modern giclée prints, numbered edition on Posterboard Matte Extra
Napoli, 1999
Napoli, 1999
Napoli, 1999
Napoli, 1999
Sfera
Metaphysical sphere from a Polaroid 809 original.Modern giclée print, numbered edition on glossy paper.
Sfera, 1989
