Looking Forward

P. Marco Veltri's photographs at Cornerstone reflect on past

P. Marco Veltri is the ultimate juggler. Sometimes it's a commercial that has piqued his interest or the promise that only a corporate assignment can provide and other times it's inspiration, guiding him along the singularity of his own obsessions with memory. In either case, when you talk to Veltri about his work, he cannot help but approach the process of image making philosophically.
This month at Cornerstone, a quaint showcase for oversized cabinets ala Shabby Chic, Veltri's Collected Works Exhibition is just that, a show representative of over seven years of photography, since his early days at Sheridan College, where he completed the Photography and Film Program. Instead of selecting the photos based on their "postcard-ishness," Veltri has chosen pictures as though scrapbooking them into his diary - the choice is nostalgic, meant to be a sign of times gone by, when he attempted camera maneuvres he would never think of trying now.
What Veltri's show amounts to is a personal journey of artistic evolution: Looking back, you can see what you were trying to attempt." A fine collection of 46 photographs brings together the best of Veltri's work, including work from his various trips back to his roots in San Giovanni in Fiore, Italy, where his parents are from. All in all, Veltri's portraits take one on a personal journey of self-reflection.
Photographs from his most recent series highlights the study of dance in all of its sensual glory -costumes swishing, bodies outstretched in a modern dance abstraction. This series, entitled New Form and Motion, is of dancers located out of context - on streetcars and in other public spaces where typically art is not meant to appear. Here Veltri photographically challenges the viewer - why should art be territorialized to remain in its designated location? He represents a populist shift in a movement of genre-bending devices, where the pushing of boundaries comes from the refusal to keep the image in its designated box. Reminiscent of films, Veltri's work often captures dancers in mid-motion, as a kind of nod to his affiliation behind the film camera.
His own, newly born media companies - EPYLLION and PMV - are currently developing and producing short films tied in thematically with the litany of others Veltri has made. Much of his work is obsessed with memory. His first, for example, titled not coincidentally Remember was a 45-minute reflection on what happens to the individual burdened with Altzeimer's, where he asks audiences "who do we become when we forget who we were?" Other films of his include Life is Change and Loss of Memory of Loss. His latest project in development is tentatively titled Self-Fulfilling Prophecy about characters who experience high levels of paranoia since the 9/11 attacks and can no longer go on living their normal lives. Instead, they are plagued with a constant morbid anticipation of the next explosion, a symptom which has recently been labelled as an actual medical condition.
Photographically, Veltri has pushed himself toward colour, even going so far as to book a trip to San Francisco for a photo shoot which would help him face his fear of the pastel. The result of this trip is the series By-Passing Light, where his experimentation with the San Francisco sun leaves the viewer somewhat regretting choosing to live in a place in interminable grey.
Veltri's work is provocative and powerful and is worth going to see even if you aren't in the market for some antiques. But if you miss this show, you can always go to the next venue - at Latitude 44 just a few doors down. It may just help you remember "to look back before looking forward," a catchall phrase that for Veltri summarizes his own feelings about personal progress and movement into the future.

Collected Works: Photo-graphs by P. Marco Veltri shows at the cornerstone, 2886 Dundas St. West, until May 31. For more information call 416-877-1806.

Publication Date: 2004-05-23
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3983