If the sun goes out.

The people of southern Italy experience the Mediterranean sea in their own way; for these people the sea is their home, their city. If we replace the asphalt of the cities with the sand of the beaches, we can find the same neuroses, the behaviors, the tics of the people. Then, the traffic and confusion become umbrellas and clothes thrown on the sand. These words are the ones I have used to describe my work dedicated to the "Street Beach" environment. And these photos are also part of it. But today, as I am arranging this story, my soul is saddened by the ferocity of war, of all wars, by the ferocity of men. The war we are experiencing is as frightening as all the other wars that still destroy humanity and nature. But this is also the war of the West. In André Gide's "Two Essays on Oscar Wilde" (December 1901), Wilde states to his young friend: "... have you noticed that the sun hates thought? It always makes it retreat and take refuge in the shadows. The first thought was in Egypt; the sun conquered Egypt. Thought lived a long time in Greece, the sun conquered Greece, then Italy, then France. Now all our thoughts are pushed to Norway and Russia, where the sun never reaches. The sun is jealous of the work of art ". So what if the sun goes out? If man turns off the sun? I imagined this sequence where the sun goes out like a lantern ... the colors dissolve, vanish in the gray until the darkness of the night of the last photograph; where the colors appear illuminated by the headlights of my car. Until we have some electricity. April 18, 2022 Massimo De Gennaro