PUBLICATIONS

Le immagini infestate.
Ecologie tossiche della fotografia
Mimesis 2026

Testi diSara Benaglia AboutPhotography is a gleaming ruin. A machine that imprints, consumes, and leaves only remnants behind. Without forced labor, without the geological violence of capitalism, without the taxonomic and mapping impulse of positivism—which later led to colonial conquests—no light would ever have been imprinted on paper. This book explores the power dynamics inherent in the medium of photography, from its analog origins through its digital dissolution to the invention of syntactic photography. The literary device from which the narrative begins is the discovery of mold on analog photographs. The mold brings to light the materiality of the “thing,” which is the only way to resist the consumerist and capitalist substance of photography and to salvage the loss of memory inherent in the digital proliferation and dissolution of images.
Blink Postfotografico.
Teorie, pratiche e derive delle immagini ibride.
Postmedia Books 2025

Testi diAurelio Andrighetto, Sara Benaglia, Rica Cerbarano, Rosa Cinelli, Irene Fenara, Sergio Giusti, Francesca Lazzarini, Marco Paltrinieri, Matteo Patelli, Carlo Sala, Alessandro Sambini, Andrea Tinterri, Carloalberto Treccani e Mauro Zanchi AboutBlink explores the new nature of the gaze in the digital age: an intermittent, fragmented “blink” that replaces contemplation with automatic reaction. Through contributions from artists and critics associated with LABA in Brescia, the book examines the image no longer as a fixed object, but as a fluid, computational impulse. Spanning algorithmic visions, artificial intelligence, and the politics of vision, the text offers a critical mapping of the technological transformations that are redefining the ontology, ethics, and artistic practices of contemporary photography.
I sette Palazzi Celesti di Kiefer
Postmedia Books 2024

Testi diMauro Zanchi AboutIn 2004, Anselm Kiefer created The Seven Heavenly Palaces in Milan, an imposing permanent installation designed for the spaces of Pirelli HangarBicocca. The seven towers, made of reinforced concrete and lead, standing up to 18 meters tall and of monumental weight, define a vertical landscape that has helped make this venue one of the city’s leading centers for contemporary art.
Mauro Zanchi’s book traces the iconographic and symbolic sources of the work, linking them to the Sefer Hekhaloth, an ancient text of Jewish mysticism (4th–6th centuries CE) that describes the ascent through the seven heavenly palaces toward the Divine Throne. In this initiatory narrative, the journey implies a radical transformation: the body dissolves under the intensity of the light, giving way to a purely spiritual state.
Through this lens, Kiefer’s towers emerge as architectures of transcendence, suspended between matter and vision, historical memory and the striving toward the absolute.
Fotografie ritrovate
Postmedia Books 2024

A cura diAurelio Andrighetto, Mauro Zanchi

Testi diAurelio Andrighetto, Sara Benaglia, Corrado Benigni, Giuseppe Di Napoli, Elio Grazioli, Vittorio Iervese, Marisa Prete e Mauro Zanchi

AboutIn Fotografie ritrovate (Postmedia Books, 2024), archival photography is explored as a spatiotemporal threshold capable of challenging the linear concept of time. The images seem to hold something waiting to be “rediscovered,” triggering in the viewer a form of involuntary attention that opens up multiple temporalities, where the future can appear as though it has already happened.
At the heart of the volume is a reflection on photographies trouvées, whose meaning remains inherently elusive: how, then, should we read the images of an archive? Through a journey that weaves together critical analysis, narrative, and engagement with artistic practices, the book explores the ambiguity of photography between document and vision, between evidence and mystery.
In this space of tension lie experiences that border on the inscrutable, such as those evoked by Melvin Moti’s Polaroids dedicated to the sites of Katie King’s ghostly apparitions, where the image becomes a trace of a presence that is both real and elusive.
Note ai margini della storia dell’arte
Postmedia Books 2023

Testi diSara Benaglia AboutHow should we interpret the exclusion of female artists and non-white subjects from the history of Italian modern art? How have women and racialized individuals been represented? Are they subjects with their own identities, or are they allegories? Notes on the Margins of Art History offers an interpretation of works created between the late 13th and 19th centuries, whose pictorial details are considered historical traces of patriarchal and racial motives and sentiments. Hedroit, the “blacksmith’s wife”; Phyllis riding Aristotle; a “V” gesture in works of Venetian Mannerism; the Miracle of the Black Leg in the Florentine Renaissance, Cifrondi’s Orientalist painting, monumental Baroque works featuring enslaved people and prisons, female painters of the sixteenth century, the Beato Angelico Collective, and the colonialist invention of time—these are just some of the echoes from the past from which to set out anew, to activate in the present the seeds of a buried future.
Le insidie delle immagini: cosa osserva la metafotografia
Postmedia Books 2022

Testi diSara Benaglia, Mauro Zanchi AboutWhat pitfalls do images carry with them, and what side effects do they set in motion? How has the language of photography opened up to interact with complex systems that have revolutionized the medium itself? Contemporary metafotography began with photography, but has since evolved into a critique of the present future, articulated through an analysis of vision, while also addressing issues related to metalanguage, the metamedium, metamodeling, and the metaverse. Artificial intelligence is involved in breaking through the concept of vision as we have known it so far and has been integrated into devices used on a global scale, influencing the collective imagination.
La fotografia come medium estendibile
Postmedia Books 2022

Testi diMauro Zanchi AboutThis book offers a critical reflection on the image in the contemporary era, suggesting that the traditional concept of “photography” has now been absorbed into a complex and hybrid iconosphere. The text explores the fluid nature of the image, viewed no longer as a static object but as a process of continuous renegotiation between author, medium, and viewer. Starting from the distinction between the image and the technological medium that conveys it, the investigation extends to the mnemonic and dreamlike dimensions, questioning how to liberate visions from their original media to give form to the dreams and doubts that inhabit our minds.
Simone Bergantini, Silvia Bigi, Achille Filipponi, Christian Fogarolli, Kensuke Koike, Rachele Maistrello, Ryts Monet, Orecchie D’Asino, Giulia Parlato, Paola Pasquaretta, Claudia Petraroli, Giovanna Repetto, Carloalberto Treccani, Lorenzo Vitturi, Martina Zanin.
Metafotografia 3: Imagomorfosi e altre ricerche
Skinnerboox 2021

Testi diSara Benaglia, Francesca Lazzarini, Mauro Zanchi
Metafotografia 3: Imagomorphosis and Other Investigations is a theoretical and visual exploration of the outer limits of contemporary photography. Edited by Mauro Zanchi and Sara Benaglia, the volume analyzes the mutation of the image in the age of artificial intelligence and algorithms, introducing the concept of “imagomorphosis”: a transformation in which the photograph is no longer a copy of reality, but a fluid and hybrid entity. Through a dialogue between critical texts and works by avant-garde artists, the book outlines an archaeology of the future, reflecting on how technology is rewriting the ontology of vision and our relationship with digital truth.
Fabrizio Bellomo, Claudio Beorchia, Federico Clavarino, Ezio D'Agostino, Discipula (Mirko Smerdel, Marco Paltrinieri, Tommaso Tanini), Teresa Giannico, IOCOSE (Matteo Cremonesi, Filippo Cuttica, Davide Prati, Paolo Ruffino), Silvia Mariotti, Luca Massaro, Filippo Minelli, Francesco Pozzato, Alessandro Sambini, Emilio Vavarella.
Metafotografia 2. Le mutazioni delle immagini
Skinnerboox 2020

Testi di
Sara Benaglia, Giangavino Pazzola, Carlo Sala, Mauro Zanchi
 AboutMetaphotography 2: The Mutations of Images continues the pioneering exploration of the fate of the photographic medium in the post-digital context. Edited by Mauro Zanchi and Sara Benaglia, with contributions by Giangavino Pazzola and Carlo Sala, the book focuses on the metamorphic nature of the contemporary image, analyzing how it breaks free from the constraints of pure representation to become a multidimensional object. Through a mapping of artistic practices ranging from web appropriation to data manipulation, the text explores the transition from photography as a “trace of reality” to photography as a constantly mutating flow of information, offering a critical compass for navigating the new languages of synthetic and technological vision.
Giulia Flavia Baczynski, Alessandro Calabrese, Paolo Ciregia, Giorgio Di Noto, Irene Fenara, Simone Monsi, Maurizio Montagna, Caterina Morigi, Alberto Sinigaglia, Lamberto Teotino, The Cool Couple, Alba Zari.
Metafotografia
Skinnerboox 2019

Testi di
Sara Benaglia, Mauro Zanchi
 AboutDoes the image possess an inevitable metaphorical quality, as Blumenberg suggests, linked to an awareness of a crisis in the philosophical claims to knowledge and universality? Is the image a seductive medium in the service of illusionism? Is the material image a simulation of a higher and more complex form that circulates throughout the universe and can be perceived by the most sensitive and receptive minds? Or do no higher-order images exist, and is everyone capable of democratically drawing from the pool of figurative possibilities? But if we consider the material image a simulation, is it therefore distinct from the image it sought to embody, and at best does it only vaguely refer to something of the universal image? Or if its identification or projection has failed, might it be that what it has shown is merely an incomplete, partial figuration, or a simulacrum?
Maria Iorio, Raphael Cuomo, Guy Ben Ner, Regina José Galindo, Adrian Paci, Gabriella Ciancimino, Invernomuto, Rocco Rorandelli
L’Africa in giardino. Migrazioni nell’arte contemporanea.
Moretti&Vitali 2018

Testi di
Sara Benaglia, Mauro Zanchi
 AboutL’Africa in giardino examines issues related to large-scale migration, refugee arrivals, detention in camps, the “state of exception,” and life in hiding, drawing on the visual narrative of a video art exhibition at the BACO Museum in Bergamo. In addition to introductory essays, the book also features interviews with artists Maria Iorio, Raphael Cuomo, Guy Ben Ner, Regina José Galindo, Adrian Paci, Gabriella Ciancimino, and Invernomuto. The work is enriched by photographs by Rocco Rorandelli that capture the essence of the controversial relationship between reality and escape from reality, between a dramatic event and its spectacularization. His images connect Italy’s political past to the problems of the present and convey the drama of migration through a poetic intensity of form and abstraction. Furthermore, a short essay is dedicated to Radio Ghetto, a participatory radio project that gives a voice to the farmworkers harvesting tomatoes in Puglia, laying bare the exploitation and isolation of those who have reached Southern Europe.
Marina Abramović, Yael Bartana, Letizia Battaglia, Vanessa Beecroft,Elisabetta Benassi, Vanessa Billy, Barbara Bloom, Fatma Bucak, Angela Bulloch, Sophie Calle, Shannon Ebner, Tracey Emin, Haris Epaminonda, Stefania Galegati, Nan Goldin, Barbara Hammer, Dana Hoey, Emily Jacir, Joan Jonas, Kimsooja, Barbara Kruger, Ketty La Rocca, Zoe Leonard,Sarah Lucas, Anna Maria Maiolino, Joanna Malinowska, Eva Marisaldi, Zanele Muholi, Shirin Neshat, Rä di Martino, Catherine Opie, Marinella Pirelli, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Alessandra Spranzi, Georgina Starr,Jemima Stehli, Rosemarie Trockel,Bettina von Zwelh, Francesca Woodman. 
The Concave Mirror
Lubrina 2016

Testi diSara Benaglia, Mauro Zanchi AboutThe Concave Mirror is the catalog for the eponymous group exhibition that brings together the works of forty female artists who have used photography and video as tools for documentation and testimony, but also for experimentation. These are women who have brought their private lives into the social and political sphere and who, from the 1960s to the present, have used their art to challenge the systems and ideologies that have discriminated against them.
Erik Saglia, May Hands, Israel Lund and James Hoff 
A.E. Abstract Existence
CURA 2016

Testi diValentina Gervasoni, Stefano Raimondi, Mauro Zanchi
 AboutA.E. Abstract Existence is a book that documents site-specific works by four artists—Erik Saglia, May Hands, Israel Lund, and James Hoff—exploring existence from an abstract perspective. The volume explores new pictorial surfaces and artistic gestures—whether serial, mechanical, or fluid.
David Adamo, Davide Allieri, Alis/Filliol, Meris Angioletti, Francesco Arena, Riccardo Beretta, Filippo Berta, Emma Ciceri, Giovanni De Lazzari, Dyzerotre Collective, Ettore Favini, Ferrario Frères, Oscar Giaconia, Marco Grimaldi, Andrea Kvas, Clara Luiselli, Andrea Mastrovito, Navid Nuur, Giovanni Oberti, Francesco Pedrini, and Alessandro Verdi (Act I); and by Paolo Baraldi, Sara Benaglia, Cinzia Benigni, Davide Casari, Mario Cresci, Diego Ferrari, Simone Longaretti, Daniele Maffeis, Adrian Paci, Dan Rees, Luca Resta, Maria Tassi, and Marco Travali (Act II).
Ogni cosa a suo tempo - All in Good time Vol. 3
Mousse Publishing 2014

Testi di
Stefano Raimondi, Mauro Zanchi
 AboutOgni cosa a suo tempo – All in good time. Vol. 3 marks the culmination of a multi-year exploration of the relationship between time, space, and matter. This volume concludes the collective reflection curated by Riccardo Beretta, taking the concepts of the “expiration” and “permanence” of the artwork to their extreme. Through a detailed documentation of artistic interventions that play with obsolescence, recovery, and cyclicality, the book analyzes how the creative act can outlive its own time or accept its own dissolution. By consolidating the dialogue between international artists and site-specific practices, the third chapter serves as a critical assessment of the patience of art, offering a definitive perspective on how slowness and sedimentation have become forms of political and poetic resistance in the contemporary art scene.
Navid Nuur, Alis/Filliol, Dan Rees and Francesco Arena
Ogni cosa a suo tempo - All in Good time Vol. 2
Mousse Publishing 2013

Testi di
Stefano Raimondi, Mauro Zanchi
 AboutOgni cosa a suo tempo – All in good time. Vol. 2 documents the evolution of the research begun in the first volume, expanding the exploration of temporality and processuality in contemporary art. Edited by Riccardo Beretta, the book brings together new essays and reflections that focus on the concept of “waiting” and the transformation of materials. Through the work of artists operating at the threshold between sculpture, installation, and conceptual action, the second volume explores the dialogue between the static nature of the artwork and the unstoppable flow of time. The text takes the form of a critical mapping of artistic gestures that challenge the immediacy of modern visual consumption, asserting the need for a slow, sedimented, and transformative time for the full understanding of the aesthetic and material experience.
Daniel Knorr, Riccardo Beretta, David Adamo, Ettore Favini
Ogni cosa a suo tempo - All in Good time
Mousse Publishing 2012

Testi diStefano Raimondi, Mauro Zanchi About Ogni cosa a suo tempo – All in good time explores the temporal dimension of the artwork, understood not only as duration but as a process of accumulation, wear, and transformation of matter. Through a selection of site-specific works, the book examines the relationship between the artistic object, the exhibition space, and the passage of time, highlighting how memory, the sculptural gesture, and ephemeral action constantly redefine the meaning of materials. It is a collective reflection on the patience of creation and on art’s ability to inhabit the present through traces, remnants, and metamorphoses.