Alessandra Sanguinetti: Some Say Ice
Since 2014, Alessandra Sanguinetti has revisited the quaint town of Black River Falls in Wisconsin, capturing images that would eventually coalesce into the stark and elliptical series known as Some Say Ice. This same town served as the focal point for Wisconsin Death Trip, a photographic compilation by Charles Van Schaick in the late 1800s, documenting the grim hardships in the lives and deaths of its residents. Sanguinetti first encountered this book during her childhood, an experience etched in her memory as her initial confrontation with mortality. This encounter eventually propelled her to delve into the peculiar relationship between photography and death, ultimately leading her to undertake her own journeys to Black River Falls.
The austere, sculptural tableaus and enigmatic, disconcerting portraits comprising Some Say Ice depict a place seemingly detached from the constraints of time. Presented without embellishments of text or elucidation, the photographs carry a touch of the gothic spirit, coupled with the unmistakable tenderness reminiscent of Sanguinetti’s earlier series, The Adventures of Guille and Belinda. By surfacing undercurrents of doubt and darkness in her images, Sanguinetti alludes to things absent or unseen, playing on atmospheres that are both real and imagined, as well as the eerie prospect of defying death through the medium of photography. Drawing inspiration from Robert Frost’s renowned poem that contemplates the best way to confront one’s inevitable demise, Some Say Ice offers a compassionate exploration of the melancholic realities that underlie our lives, viewed with glacial clarity by one of the world’s preeminent photographers.
About the Author
Born in New York in 1968, Alessandra Sanguinetti spent the years from 1970 to 2003 residing in Argentina and currently calls New York home. A graduate of ICP, she embarked on a series of projects in 1999 centered around the dynamic between two nine-year-old cousins, Belinda and Guille, who reside on a farm outside Buenos Aires. Over the course of a decade, Sanguinetti captured their metamorphosis from girls to young women. Collaborating closely with the subjects, the resulting series, titled “The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams,” utilized costumes, props, and references to art and literature to conjure images that delve into the fantasies and anxieties accompanying the physical and psychological journey from childhood to adulthood. As the girls matured, the photographs assumed a more contemplative tone, reflecting their exploration of adult life.
A member of Magnum Photos, Sanguinetti’s photographic works find homes in prestigious museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Mary O’Donnell Hulme.
