Bouble book, risograph printing, handmade binding, edition of 300 numbered copies.

A book on 'viewfinders': finders of new views, just because they hold the camera in alternative ways. With texts by Erik Kessels and Luca Panaro

Viewfinders is a project that has undergone several editorial forms over the years: from a dummy developed during a workshop at Chippendale studio Milano, to a self-published artist's book with a small print run, finally becoming a book published by studiofaganel. Although it has a larger print run, it has remained an artist's book due to many characteristics, linked to the materials used, the (handmade) binding, and especially the printing, which saw the combination of offset and the Risograph technique (for the portraits of the Viewfinders).

Finally, the project arrives at the form of an artwork, and chooses to do so in close connection with the book: thus, the works will still be floating portraits on a neutral background, still Risograph prints on paper identical to that used for the edition.

The project stems from extensive research into camera user manuals, in which images were found that improperly describe the use of the device. These images thus portray figures looking into the viewfinder, and in the wrong, alternative gesture of holding the camera upside down, they become finders of new views (viewfinders). Among its various reflections, the work suggests the necessity and beauty of seeking different and unusual points of view to look at reality, thanks also to the magical encounter with a camera and with photography, exactly as the artist himself did by recognizing and finding these portraits within a vast "archive" of images.

"It is exactly this kind of finds and observations that make me very happy and enthusiastic. Masses of people look at the same images and types of images nowadays, but it needs artists like Girola to show us the niche and meaningful images from the fringe. In this way our eyes keep on being surprised and we keep the faith that there are still images to be discovered." (Erik Kessels)

https://www.studiofaganel.com/bookshop/viewfinders-matteo-girola-2/