Pierre André Podbielski: DIALOGUE

There are projects inspired by an idea, others by a sense of urgency, and others by a journey. This book comes from all three at once: from a simple idea, from a deep urgency and from a journey that has never truly ended.
“Dialogue” is a collection of encounters: accidental or sought after, captured in their most authentic fragility, when people do not know they are being observed or included in a narrative. It is a book that gathers the stories of those who have lived in and passed through places, and now seeks to recreate, through images the invisible thread of the connections that accompanied them.
(from introduction by Silvia Merlo)

Every double-page spread offers a surprise, but also bears witness to Pierre André’s ever-alert attention, his ability to choose the right moment, to frame with skill, to recognise a possible dialogue and transform it into an encounter between the subjects portrayed and those who, afterwards, will look at his images. What took place “beyond the white wall” of his first book now extends beyond the art system, beyond the delicate form of surveillance to which the author subjects himself.
His experience as a collector and gallerist gives him a thorough understanding of exhibition spaces, audience behaviour, and the relationship between the artwork, the wall and the viewer. Now this experience expands into different territories: parks, streets, bars, ports, with the same curiosity, the same ability to capture the moment in which dialogue takes place—or to isolate the moment in which dialogue exists only as his own desire or intuition.
(from essay by Giovanna Calvenzi)