‘My point of arrival’: Gabriele Basilico's photobooks: Fid-Bau Portal

‘My point of arrival’: Gabriele Basilico's photobooks

Tommasini, Alexandra

Photobooks were an integral and generative part of photographer Gabriele Basilico’s practice. Through them he meticulously probed the shifting states of urban environments, like a doctor or scientist detecting the state of health of a patient. In a catalogue accompanying an exhibition held in 2006, he described his photobooks as ‘points of arrival’ — the result of a series of open and wide-reaching explorations of the urban condition. Once readers spend time with his narratives, they begin to think more about the nature of the contemporary urban landscape. Certain questions then arise: What stories do Basilico’s volumes recount about the urban condition? Do Basilico’s urban theses raise questions or chart possibilities? How do his volumes evoke the potential of the city space? In what ways do his photobooks act as archives of disappearing urban environments? Using these guiding questions, this article explores how Basilico’s photographs work in conjunction with the narrative capacity of the book format to advance a position on urban spaces. It looks closely at three volumes: Interrupted City (1999), Cityscapes (2000) and Milano. Ritratti di fabbriche [Milan. Portraits of Factories] (1981; 1983).