NICOLA
COSTANTINO: IN THE SKIN OF THE PAST By Ana Martínez Quijano
In order to trace the origin of Nicola Costantino’s photographs,
one must go back to the year she lived in Houston, a time in the
mid 1990s when, with a supreme sophistication, she created her
Human Furriery. Then, faced with the need to mount a performance
and lower its cost, she showed her own designs and thus became
a glamorous model.
Those images are the clearest antecedents of the consummate actress
that surprises us today when she personifies the most diverse psychological
prototypes.
The owner of a significant artistic trajectory, Nicola initiated
her photography production in 2005, and she demonstrated her versatility
when she appropriated Man Ray’s female characters.
What distinguishes her images is respect for the conventions and
protocols of each photographic style; the fact that they denote – without
exceptions – the much sought-after “museum quality” and,
above all, the reflections they pose on some of the milestones
in the history of cinematography, photography and occasionally,
painting.
In her representations, the viewer may perceive how Nicola allows
herself to be invaded by identities, situations, and meanings which
are foreign to her, and which establish a difficult rivalry relationship
with the artist.
Nicola does not completely disappear from the scenes she composes;
however, she abandons herself to the pose and blends in fully.
Thus she becomes Edward Steichen’s mysterious Gloria Swanson;
she succeeds in being the dead Ophelia of the pre-Raphaelites and,
at the same time, the Ophelia of photographer Weegee; she gets
into the skin of the rough Westerner who poses for Richard Avedon,
while he hold his son upside down; she is also the disturbed character
in Metropolis, the victim seduced by Nosferatu, with her bleeding
neck, and the Madonna with the pig which, although reminiscent
of the style of “tableaux vivants,” or living pictures,
reminds us of Leonardo’s Madonna of the Rocks.
Nicola recreates the poignant humanity of Primeros pasos (First
Steps) andLa mujer del sweater rojo (The Woman
in the Red Sweater) painted by Antonio Berni, self-absorbed
and melancholic, with her head resting on her hand, unaware of
the world that surrounds her.
But besides being an other, she is her own self, with her bloody fantasies. “Inspired
by a beautiful Renaissance sculpture, I imagined The trilogy of Nicola’s
death, where I am included three times, as the worker, the glamorous girl,
and the bad girl who kills the other two,” she points out.
Nicola’s work is a tribute to the past, it is laden with
resonances, but the viewer will come across some winks and signs
that will enable him/her to discover the power of contemporary
reinterpretation and the shrewd questionings – not devoid
of humor – with respect to the aesthetic aspirations of
the past..
