Piazza Corvetto in Genua met in met midden een standbeeld van koning Victor II Emanuel c. 1870 - 1900

Editor: This gelatin silver print from Alfredo Noack, sometime between 1870 and 1900, depicts the Piazza Corvetto in Genoa. The composition feels quite formal, dominated by the statue. What's striking to you about this piece? Curator: I’m drawn to the image's capacity to document the means of urban production. The gelatin silver process itself is key. Its relative affordability and reproducibility expanded photographic practices. But consider the urban space: how was it planned and built? What labour went into constructing those neoclassical buildings and the monument itself? What was the consumption like, around the Piazza? Editor: So you see the photograph less as art, and more as a record of urban development and labor? Curator: Precisely! Think about the materials themselves. Gelatin silver requires specific ingredients and processes. The photographic paper, the chemical solutions, the glass plate negatives – these were products of industrial capitalism. We must also ask, who is this photograph FOR? Was it to generate tourism? The commercial value changes its intention entirely. Editor: That's a fascinating point. I hadn't considered how the commodification of the image affects its meaning. Curator: The small figures dotted across the piazza become like accessories for the urban and monarchial glorification, captured with newly inexpensive means, widely distributed as postcards. Editor: This image made me appreciate that art isn't created in a vacuum; it is related to how people live, and even its manufacture. Curator: Yes, a full embrace of the art’s complex relationships.