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Winter Stories #57, 2008

Hasted Hunt Kraeutler is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs, drawings and watercolors by Paolo Ventura, in conjunction with the release of a new monograph “Winter Stories” (Aperture 2009). There will be a reception for the artist on Wednesday, December 9th from 6 to 8 p.m.

The images in “Winter Stories” are narratives set in a small fictional Tuscan village in the early 1950’s; an imagined place full of dream-like memories. Through the lens of the camera, Ventura captures a unique marriage of storytelling with painting, drawing, and sculpture - all on a reduced scale. The results are intricately detailed and imagined visual scenarios.

These are “make-believe at the most magical, at once sophisticated and sincere; every detail tells a story”. (Vince Aletti. The New Yorker)

“Paolo Ventura has a photographic memory. It’s not that he remembers everything; instead he transforms his memories – and his dreams and imaginings – into photographs. Ventura has imagined the last 20 minutes in the life of a dying man, who shuffles through his own memories like a bundle of photographs”. (Lyle Rexer, Photograph)

This is the first exhibition of Paolo Ventura’s ink drawings and watercolors. Hasted Hunt Kraeutler will also have one of the artist’s unique, hand-made, tabletop installations on view. Ventura designs and fabricates these small-scaled theatrical settings: room interiors, streetscapes and carnival midway, especially to be photographed. The son of a successful children’s book illustrator, Ventura continues a family tradition of creating a whimsical, intricate, fantasy world in his series, “Winter Stories”.

In the introduction to the monograph “Winter Stories”, Eugenia Parry writes that, the artist’s
“Inventiveness comes from remembering. He has an architect’s instinct for the psychological drama in enclosures. A splinter of some thought arrives, as if from nowhere. He seizes it, rolls and unrolls it, turns it like a toy in his hand until every detail he needs to give it a form in space becomes fixed in his head. Apart from the idea’s arrival, he leaves little to chance or suggestion in the construction process. Each scene in “Winter Stories” is the result of Paolo’s agonizing struggle to build an exact replica of his idea … he can work no other way.”

This is Ventura’s third exhibition with Sarah Hasted and W.M. Hunt who are now partnered with Joseph Kraeutler in Hasted Hunt Kraeutler. Mr. Ventura made his international gallery debut with “War Souvenir” in 2006. He has since had major solo shows in Arles, Milan and Rome, Moscow and The Hague.

Publications

Paolo Ventura

Winter Stories
Nov 30, 2009

Artists in Exhibition

Press

THE NEW YORKER

PHOTO BOOTH: THE MOST MEMORABLE PHOTO SHOWS OF 2010
Dec 17, 2010

NEWS FROM THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

PHOTOGRAPHER PAOLO VENTURA DISCUSSES BOOK "WINTER STORIES"
Sep 29, 2010

VS

PAOLO VENTURA
Sep 01, 2010

THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW

A VISION OF DARKNESS: BEHIND THIS WEEK'S COVER ART
Aug 06, 2010

CULTURE 24

PAOLO VENTURA: WWII TRAGEDY OF LIDICE REMEMBERED IN FFOTOGALLERY EXHIBITION
Feb 03, 2010

Wales Online

PAOLO VENTURA: EXHIBITION INSPIRED BY THE SILENT VILLAGE
Jan 20, 2010

The New Yorker

PAOLO VENTURA
Jan 11, 2010

The New Yorker

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN: ART - Shortlist
Dec 21, 2009

The New York Times

NONFICTION CHRONICLE: PAOLO VENTURA
Dec 10, 2009

PDN

PAST PERFECT
Dec 01, 2009

PDN

PAOLO VENTURA: WINTER STORIES
Nov 30, 2009

SOHO JOURNAL

"WINTER STORIES" BY PAOLO VENTURA -OPENS 12/09
Nov 30, 2009

Sunday Times

Toy Story
Nov 15, 2009

Harper's

Nov 01, 2009

E Magazine

Stories of inexperienced memories and dreams in the images of Paolo Ventura
Aug 21, 2009

Modern Painters

PAOLO VENTURA
Apr 01, 2009