Richard Renaldi - The Nicolaysen Art Museum

Renaldiencapsulatesandoffersamostpreciousintimacywithhis
subjects. They reveal themselves to him and to us in the
fraughtinteractionthatphotographycreatesbetweensubject,
artist, and viewer. This relationship combines a certain
voyeurism on the part of the viewer with the anonymity
and intense intimacy between subject and artist that exists
for a short-lived moment. There is no attempt on the part
of the artist or subject to implicitly dramatize or heroicize
their situation, even though the images are staged and
planned with full participation on both sides. They do not
look as such, which makes all the difference. The process
by which Renaldi creates this work is more cumbersome
and time-consuming than the images implicitly convey. The
photographs are composed to look like the subjects were
just happened upon and snapped in an instant. The 8 x
10 Wisner camera that Renaldi sets up with the tripod is
cumbersome and oversized, with the entire process and
interaction sometimes taking up to ten minutes to complete.
His subjects must be willing to then play an equal and lengthy
part in this charged act of communication and reciprocity.
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