The stage, grazed by the beam of the floodlights that divide it into zones of shadow and golden light, is empty. There is a single, bulky presence—a large egg—this too is golden. Fetish, totem, primordial mineral amulet, it seems to allude threateningly to a monstrous, imminent birth. But it also refers to the self-sufficiency of that which, not being procreated, doesn’t know how to procreate. The movement of this disturbing body, pushed diagonally across the stage, seems, through some paradoxical cloning, to bring into being the surreal shape of a creature, both horrible and enchanting. Similar

Place is the subject of Mimmo Jodice’s photographs. His Neapolitan landscapes—the gulf with Vesuvius in the distance, the humble farms, the surrounding archaeological sites, the sea as horizon line—document a free space—even if it is sometimes crowded with things and objects. There is no direct human presence in these pictures, yet he captures in the scenes artifacts that testify to mankind’s history. Jodice belongs to a generation of photographers that began working in the ’50s and ’60s—a generation preceded by a complete lack of understanding of photographic expression. Precisely for this