Leonardo Magrelli
West of Here

Exhibition Details

Apparently a reportage on the city of Los Angeles, on a closer look West of Here reveals its deception: the images come from the video game Grand Theft Auto V. What does the collective memory of a place that does not exist look like? To which point do we trust photography as a trace of reality?

Black and white landscapes show us queuing cars, palm trees, pylons, signs, and night lights illuminating the road. The visual research appears aligned with the historical photographic account of the American territory, which has become iconic in the images of Ruscha, Wessel, Hernandez and Divola. Yet, the city is not Los Angeles but Los Santos, a digital simulation of the Californian metropolis and its surroundings. The screenshots, taken by players all over the world and then collected from the Web, cropped and toned into black and white by Magrelli, testify to the creation of images as a ubiquitous and shared process.

From this plurality a single narrative takes shape: the city of the Studios and the film industry ironically becomes a set, a mise-en-scène. It appears familiar to us, yet in its representation pieces are missing, distances are altered. An invitation to reflect on how visual storytelling contributes to our imagination and influences our perception of reality.