Luigi&Luca is a project started one year ago when we decided to put the energy of our relationship into an art project. Luigi V. was doing photography since a few years before, he partecipated at several exhibitions and he was using his photography for his gay club promoter actvities, as flyers projections and videos. He was studying Photography at the Studio Marangoni in Florence, at Central Saint Martins in London at the Sorbonne in Paris and he get his degree in History of Photography at the university of Florence. Luca G. come from painting, he had different exhibitions, and he was published in a few catalogs, he got his degree at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, his first works involved paintings, sculpture, video and installations.
Luigi&Luca project started when we moved to Madrid in 2007, we was already modeling together as a duo for fashion but more for art photography (like Greg Gorman for whom we continue to model or PacoyManolo and other photographers) , so we decided to build an imaginary together to express what we really care to say. The method we adopt to work is in a sense the concept behind the photos, the way we work is complex, we do not work with crews or assistents, everything is an elaboration of an intimate situation between the two of us, we set the shoot first deciding the point of view, then Luigi takes photos of Luca and Luca takes photo of Luigi, the result it's all about the editing, we put the two of us together manipulating and glue differents images, the result of the final picture, is not something that was happing in front of the camera but something that was previusly in our head. The two of us meet not on the real set but on a different level of reality that we shape following our needings.
The works of Luigi&Luca was pubblished in various magazines, and they've been circulating on the web.
Our prints are 100cmx70cm, framed in black wood, the prints are made in Italy by Roberto Tomasi with specials pigments on an artisan and unique paper or canvas, then coated handly with a resisent resin. Roberto Tomasi worked with Avedon, Irving Penn, Salgado and Oliviero Toscani. His techniques give at Luigi&Luca’s works the elegancy and the perfection we are looking for.
reviews
L'immaginario sotteso alla poetica di Luca&Luigi è ricco di citazioni stravolte e ironiche che cortocircuitano elementi colti e cultura popolare, immaginario gay e sottocultura hollywoodiana. I due artisti riconfigurano ambiti e territori di un'estetica vicina alla sensibilità camp, intesa come una poetica dell'ostentato e dell'improbabile, dell'artificio e dell'eccesso". Una forma di "dandysmo contemporaneo" che rappresenta la vittoria dello «stile» sul «contenuto», dell'«estetica» sulla «morale», dell'ironia sulla tragedia. Una strategia che attraverso il citazionismo post-moderno porta al riutilizzo strumentale del passato riattualizzato in una mistione continua di sogno e realtà.
Una poetica che fa di ogni singolo scatto la ricostruzione formalmente perfetta, ironica e accattivante a un tempo, di un microcosmo abitato dai protagonisti della mitologia personale dei due artisti: eroi ammiccanti, bloccati nella costante attesa di un intrusione da parte dello spettatore-voyeur.
Eugenio Viola, Curator Project Room MADRE,-
The intensity of Luigi and Luca’s black-and-whites touches our senses before it reaches our mind. It holds us captive, sucks us into the intimacy, vulnerability and poetry of their imaginary. LyL’s bodies, and all that traverses them are strung in tension between two aesthetic poles: fashion photography––with its objectification and sterilisation of the models––and magic realism––over-coding the images with symbols. Their photographs do not tell known stories; they ask to be deciphered and invite us to imagine what it means to mature as a new generation of gay couples always sliding back and forth from apparently-gained freedom to the sexual repression of a dogmatic culture. This process takes place first of all on the body and through the body. LyL double the bet by making it their weapon.
Alessandra Renzi, Curator
Photographes et fils de leur epoque, ils sont eux-memes le sujet de leur images. Ils revisitent l'estetique Queer en affichant sans vergogne un dandysme trash narquois et desinvolte.
Au premiere regard, leurs photographies pourraient sembler de facture classique si la forte charge sexuelle ne veneit pas perturber le regard et conduire le spectateur vers d'obscurs
enfers audela' de l'image et pervertir le reel. Chez eux, meme le plus cru parait sugere' tant le glamour sophistique de la composition degage une force poetique destabilizant.
Malgre' leur jeunesse, ils ouvrent avec une maitrise rare de la lumiere et du traitement de la surface. Et c'est souz cette que tout se promet... sous ces noirs profonds, sous ces gris moelleux, sous la densite' brutale de la couleur, sous l'ambivalence de la forme.
Ils jouent avec leur ressemblance dans la mise en scene dramatique d'une gemelite' incestuose. Ce jeu cynique du double et du trouble induit une ambiguita' deconcertante.
Une beaute' suffocante et une ironie provocatrice. Il n'y a pas a' dire, ces deux-la ont du style.
Un specialiste du genre, que Pref affectionne, le photographe Slava Mogutin, a ecrit a leur propos sur son blog: "LyL, la nouvelle decuverte la plus chaude de ces derniers moi.
Leur art es elegant poetique sensible, obsedant et exhibitionniste. Un melange parfait de porno et de mode, de references cultivees et de marginalita' salace.
plus de pouvoir a' vous chiennes sexy!!".
Chiennes et sexy, effrontes et charnels, offerts aux regards et pourtant inacessibles... Invitons-nous dans l'elegante indecence du duo italien.
Max Pella, Pref Magazine
Le fotografie di Luigi Y Luca catturano l'immaginazione in maniera
creativa e provocatoria, svelando attraverso i loro corpi e le loro curve, un personale immaginario erotico elegantemente ambiguo ed esibizionista. C'è qualcosa in questa coppia in grado di trasformare
naturalmente un atto pornografico in qualcosa di ossessivamente
poetico.
Alex Vaccani, scrittore giornalista.
"Italian couple LUIGI Y LUCA — the hottest new discovery of the recent months. Their art is elegant, poetic, sensitive, obsessive and exhibitionistic. It's a perfect blend of porn and fashion, high culture and marginal kink. More power to you, sexy bitches!!!"
Slava Mogutin, photographer
Luigi y Luca may be among the most interesting artists of this new era. They are highly provocative, no question about it, teasing us - some might say 'testing us' - thematically, blending with style that actually recalls Italian classic art. Ah, but there is more - humor, sometimes lightly referencing early to mid period Gilbert & George; and geometry that once again harkens to the most dramatic period in Italian classicism.
Jack Riley, Flasher art Magazine
And just when you started missing Gilbert & George, here comes Luigi y Luca - a newly born project of two artists and lovers living in between Italy and Spain. Their work is both humorous and political with little space for subtlety.
Channel83, art project.
I love love love love love love love love these guys. Luigiyluca are these two beautiful boys who make work together. There is such an immediacy and curiosity in their work, it's really quite beautiful.
Ryan Pfluger, photographer
