Backforward

Swiss-born photographer Flavio Micheli's Backforward series emerged from the immediate appeal of motifs. They tell of events and traces, making palpable an inherent tension between the explicitly depicted and the implicitly suggested. People are scarcely visible, yet their presence can be subtly sensed. Their traces become reference points leading back to memory and instigating imagination. At first glance, Micheli's images seem to be unspectacular vedute that only upon closer inspection reveal the underlying, nonverbal sphere. The partial coloring of pictures shot in black and white reinforces this ambivalence and leads to a shift in focus.

Brief texts on Micheli's art by writer Annelisa Alleva and translator Silvia Kleist, as well as a lyrical "Letter from the Past for Tomorrow" by journalist and performance artist Anja Nora Schulthess, round out this carefully designed volume.