About
Emanuele's interest in the natural world reminds us that an atelier can be seen as a laboratory, that a “poetic science” is a more enlightened one, and that collaborations across disciplines are needful, and very pretty indeed.
A photographer, collector and compulsive reader, he is a proponent of nineteenth-century philosophy and science. Grasping and understanding is only possible by turning inward and adopting a reverent perception. Looking at his Naturgemälde we encounter the sensual, visible “working out” of a whole new world. At a time of rationalistic valuation of all things, when the recording medium of the camera is considered superior to the retina, reality is for him a matter of dispute, to be imbued with ‘a warmth of feeling and a force of imagination’. By this he means what Goethe called ‘exact sensorial fantasy’: the power to apprehend the noumenal that lies behind the phenomenal. Photography promises him, in other words, to reveal secrets to the human eye that are usually hidden and invisible to us behind the appearing world.
Biography
Emanuele Torti was born in 1980 in Rome, Italy. He earned a MA degree in Modern Literature from the University of Roma Tre, Rome (2006). In his twenties he briefly considered becoming a fashion photographer, being busy at several studios, including that of Amit Israeli in Tel Aviv. In the late 2010s, he attended a Master in Professional Photography at ‘OF Officine Fotografiche’ in Rome, and began to educate himself as an artist, then assisted the curatorial activity of Marco Delogu, independent publisher and editor. In 2014 Emanuele moved to Berlin and shortly after joined the artist collective Treptow Ateliers, of which he is still a member.
Alternately romantic, cerebral, and unearthly, Emanuele's all analogue and non-altered photographs are closer to the realm of painting than instant photography. He embraces difficult techniques, chooses equipment that produces accidents such as light flares and double exposures, and employ complex technical tricks to enhance atmospheric effects, mist, or haze. Looking backwards for his influences, Emanuele pays homage to the work of the pioneer photographers of the nineteenth century, in particular to the Pictorialists, who preferred diffused light and a blurred rendering of forms. In the reviews of these artists, he makes again use of the expression Naturstimmung and talk of the "magic of tone and mood" to describe a landscapes' novel charm. Always experimenting, he opposes modern mechanics with natural vision, restoring and reinvigorating the artistry and alchemy of early photography.
Photography CV
Born 1980 in Rome, Italy
2020 - today Member of Treptow-Ateliers e.V., Berlin, Germany
https://www.treptow-ateliers.de/emanuele-torti
Education
2001- 2006 Master Degree in Comparative Literature, University of “Roma 3”, Rome, Italy
https://www.uniroma3.it/
2006 - 2009 Master in Professional Photography at OF Officine Fotografiche, Rome, Italy
https://roma.officinefotografiche.org/
2009 Assistant Photographer at Studio Amit Israeli, Tel Aviv, Israel
https://www.amitisraeli.com/
2010 - 2011 Internship / Assistant Photographer at Studio Marco Delogu - Punctum Press, Rome, Italy
https://lnx.marcodelogu.com/
Exhibitions
2021 Open Studios, Treptow Ateliers, Berlin, Germany
https://www.treptow-ateliers.de/post/open-studios
2021 Don't Try This at Home, Group Exhibition at Treptow Ateliers, Berlin, Germany
https://www.treptow-ateliers.de/post/don-t-try-this-at-home
2020 Down by the River, Group Exhibition at Treptow Ateliers, Berlin, Germany
https://www.treptow-ateliers.de/post/die-ausstellung-down-by-the-river-treptow-ateliers-in-den-rathenau-hallen