Alex Fakso - (IT)

Alex Fakso, born in Italy in 1977, started out as a graffiti and skateboard photographer in the early ‘90s. His interest in photography let to studying it at the Arts Institute of Cittadella (Padova / Italy). Taking photos for over 10 years, he quickly broadend his horizont and now takes photos with analog as well as digital cameras, color and black&white, yet all coined by his own particular style.

Fakso’s interests is always in showing humans in a personal way. One of his on-going projects, “Heavy Metal”, documents graffiti writers painting their names on public transport. Being a graffiti writer himself, Fakso learned that painting a train and recording the result with a photocamera was not enough for him. He then focused on capturing the emotions and challenging situations his and him friends had to go trough. This included entering places strongly guarded by CCTV-cameras, barbwire and security personnel. Some of this photos have been published in his first book “Heavy Metal”, published 2007 by Damiani Editore.

His second book, “Fast or die”, is the successor of “Heavy Metal” and dives even deeper into the underground of the world’s major cities. The places Fakso works at, the silent and deserted subway tunnels, are the impressive scenario of his protagonists. The photos are authentic and raw and tell of the vivid atmospheres and the sensations of a parallel world that breaths and moves through the darkest bends of our cities.

In order to receive the most satisfying results he has spent the last two years working all over Europe, from Barcelona, London to Bucharest, Moscow as well as spending several months in Tokyo, São Paulo and Los Angeles.

Alex Fakso reconstructs the underground epic of a handful of credible dreamers who communicate only with each other, regardless of praise or criticism. Alex Fakso’s photography, its involvement and its extraordinary evocative power, performs institutional task: it helps us learn and, if not share, certainly try and understand. — Giovanna Calvenzi