Interview: Christian Basetti 
Luca Curci talks with Christian Basetti during HYBRID IDENTITIES 2023, the first appeal of BORDERS ART FAIR held at Palazzo-Albrizzi Capello. 

Christian Basetti, born in 1979, lives and works in Milan. Since 2014 he has been immersed in the world of landscape photography, and accomplices some trips abroad. The great backpacking journeys made in solitary push him almost naturally to approach this genre. The reportage does not excite him and, as an aesthete of the image, always realizes shots in a fine art key. In 2015 the passion for adventure flows into a new photographic genre: the photography of ancient forgotten decadent places. It tries to convey unusual emotions and give voice to these structures full of melancholic charm: a secret, hidden and silent world that exists both in the present and in the past, in a dimension suspended out of time. He focuses on the Italian historical heritage and travels across the peninsula in search of these places in decline trying to preserve in his shots, the ancient glitz faded. The search for places is an integral part of the challenge, as well as physical and legal risks to avoid being discovered in properties not publicly accessible. The adrenaline and adventure component is still present in his photographic approach. Over time he created the macro project called “Forgotten Art-architectures”: also here he applied a fine art vision as a differentiating and stylistic element, always aimed at aesthetics and never limited exclusively to the documentary aspect. His pride in Italian artistic heritage empathizes with the ancient abstract pride of these places as if they were silent narcissistic entities in search of someone able to convey their greatness.

He is inspired by the style of Caravaggio, making photographic works that reach the quality of a painting thanks to a careful study of the light in the various hours of the day. He also applies to this genre his experience in the landscape where there is exclusive dependence on natural light. Over the last few years, he has participated in several solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and art fairs, finding considerable consensus among the public. He has appeared in some international publications related to the world of photography and he has obtained several awards and recognitions in prestigious international photographic competitions such as Px3 Awards Paris, IPA Awards New York, MIFA Awards Moscow and TIFA Awards Tokyo.  

Luca Curci – What is the trigger that leads you to produce art?
Christian Basetti – I am strongly attracted by the aesthetics of the environments and reworked them in a fine art key (landscapes and architecture)

LC – Which artists have somehow had an influence on your work?
CB – Caravaggio

LC – Is there an unrealised or unrealisable project, even a crazy one, that you would like to work on
CB – I would like to make several photographic books and publish them.

LC – What are the three hashtags essential to define your poetics that you could not give up?
CB – #decay  #fineart  #italian

LC – Where do you find your inspiration?
CB – From the canvases of Caravaggio

LC – Do you agree with our vision of art and what do you think about the theme of the exhibition?
CB – Open theme allows more artists to participate

LC – In which way the artwork presented in our exhibition is connected with the exhibition’s theme
CB – Hybrid identities:  my places have a hybrid temporal identity, they exist both in the present and in the past

LC – What do you think about ITSLIQUID Platform?
CB – It’s very well publicised and curated online, it has a lot of initiatives and it gives many opportunities for artists to be able to exhibit in major cities.

LC – What do you think about the organization of our event?
CB –The curator Maria Teresa Cafarelli was always available to better organize my participation

LC – Would you suggest a collaboration with us? What do you think about our services?
CB – In a period like that during the Venice Biennale I suggest keeping the exhibition open also during Saturday and Sunday, potential days of greater flow, and a greater opportunity for artists to be known. I noticed a lack of public posters in the city of Venice that could channel the public towards the exhibition. The building where the exhibition resided is not on the main routes of passage and if nobody knows that there is the exhibition can not be intrigued and therefore enter.