Signs of Light

Fotoglifos [photoglyphs] are not just paintings—they are signs of light meant to be projected. They are also collaborative experiences created by Fernando Birri in partnership with other artists such as photographer Luciano Valletta and the Italian musician Gianni Nocenzi who composed scores for several photoglyph projections. These works are not conceived as standalone pieces. As scholar Jorge Ruffinelli notes, each figure in the series “reproduces the Previous and ventures toward the Different, in a double movement of rupture and continuity.” ¹ In this series, painting approaches cinema as a luminous sign.

Espejismos del Karibe, the audiovisual work that anchors this section, emerged, according to Birri “as the result of my last decade in contact with the lived experiences of the cultural area of the Latin and Afro-Caribbean. It is the synthesis of three visual stimuli: the archaeological signs of ancient pre-Columbian cultures (to which, in the specific case of ‘Espejismos del Karibe,’ are added the magical signs of the secret Abakuá cult brought to the Caribbean by old African slaves); the uncontaminated erotic force underlying as vital energy in the collective unconscious of the peoples we today mistakenly call ‘primitive’; a cosmic (and cosmogonic) vision of existence: men and gods sharing joys, sorrows, and destiny in their daily lives.” ²