It was in 1978 that I had the opportunity to create this sequence of images thanks to the Council of Culture of the Lodi area. The Council invited me to do a collective exhibition, the title being “Freedom limits/the object: faced interpretations”. During these years, even though it was the start of my career as a professional photographer I had a lot of work, although it was more for the trademarks of industrial design than for the architecture magazines. 

The opportunity to participate in a cultural and artistic event spurred me on to put the beauty and formality that normally accompanies the representation of objects in still-life photographs to one side, and to think up a freer project -more symbolic and ironic- to interpret the theme.

Whilst reflecting about the relationship between the object-chair and the human body (I also remembered some conversations I had had with Binfaé), a funny and grotesque image came to mind of the marks that the hard summer chairs in the sea leave on the bare bodies of the swimmers. A truly authentic negative “by contact”: a temporary tattoo in relief that is printed on the body, aesthetically revealing the original surface of the contact.

I thought the idea of reconstructing this sequence of “marks” made by putting chairs and bottoms together in the studio was hilarious. To make it easier to see the connection and the traces left behind on the skin, I used, in addition to appropriate lighting, a black and white Polaroid film: the negative developed instantaneously with an exceptional softness and clarity.

Gabriele Basilico. July 2009