Why is this such a fascinating photograph? Perhaps because of several reasons at the same time. First of all, because of what it shows us: we are obviously in the middle of a city (look at all the cars that are parked there!), but there is no-one to be seen. How is this possible? Is it Sunday morning? It is almost surreal. Secondly, because of the clear formal structure of the image. The two streets are intersecting in the middle foreground, and both are symmetrically flanked by and separated by extensive blocks of houses, the small end of the middle block right in front of our eyes. The symmetrical composition creates a very clear and particular shape of the rooftops against the grey skies. Buildings have become massive sculptural forms.
But there is another thing that is making this photograph so special: the atmosphere that we only know from 19th century photographs.
It is almost as if Oporto has been visited by a very contemporary Atget, the French photographer who has documented the empty streets of Paris around 1900. But, of course, Paolo Catrica is no Atget, and Atget no Catrica. Catrica has learned from Atget, one could say, the method of very consciously using the medium's specific qualities in describing, in minute detail, that which is right before the camera lens, without any specific preference, and excluding nothing - the world as it is, in black and white.
Now there is this strange thing with colour and black and white in photography. Black and white photographs used to be truer than colour photographs. Especially in photojournalism and documentary practices, black and white for long prevailed as the sign of the real thing, of honesty, commitment, and of the photographic essence. Colour used to be slick, distorted, commercial, and arty. But ever since William Eggleston's exhibition in 1976 in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, colour photography has entered the serious artistic realm. Give or take a few exceptions, contemporary photography is colour.
The work of Paolo Catrica is one of those exceptions. Or at least the majority of his work. But one might even say, that this body of work isn't even black and white really, as most of his images are made of a large variety of grey tones where real black and real white are missing.Catrica's choice for these 'greys' must have a relationship with the choice for his subjects: places that seem to be nowhere in particular.
In a very unspectacular way, he photographs sites in suburban areas (In his hometown Oporto and in other cities) that lack any interesting point of view of subject for the average tourist. For the latter, his images of nondescript streets, taken under grey skies with even human beings being completely absent, would even be absolutely boring.
There is also his choice for the moment, or more specifically: for the light, which is greyish and doesn't cause any shadows. Because of the even light and the balanced composition, nothing stands out in particular and our eyes can wander about in the picture at will. We are invited to scrutinise, look for traces and clues. Catrica avoids any romanticism or nostalgia. He is not so much interested in the city as a metaphor for modern life, as the hectic place that is full of energy, violence and movement, where extremes between good and bad, rich and poor, high and low meet. Catrica's city is first and foremost a physical structure with a life of its own, with a surface full of traces, with texture, form and rhythm. This life is already a long one. We can recognize, sometimes only in details, buildings from different building periods and architectural styles. We can recognize the traces and marks that are left on their surfaces by history.
There are almost always buildings in Catrica's photographs, but his images are not architectural photographs per se. He is not so much interested in the buildings as neat and artistic objects, but more in the way they show that they have been used, effected by the weather, that they have been damaged, reconstructed and refurbished, and have gotten dirty through the course of time. Nor is he interested in important buildings, and when there are any in his photographs, they just happen to be there. Almost all of the buildings in his photographs remain anonymous. Their identity remains vague, the only thing that becomes clear is how they are positioned in relation to each other and their immediate environment, as parts of the (sub)urban fabric. In this sense he photographs urban and suburban structures, but he doesn't explain these structures to us. His photographs do not give us any insight in the overall structure of the city, but in the structure, or rather the lack of structure, of the site.
Yet he makes us aware of these places, by presenting an unfamiliar image of them. He also makes us aware of the fact that we tend not to look at these places. In daily life, they do not exist for us though we may pass them a thousand times. We never see them. His images become the metaphors for our neglect of, and our indifference for the places where we live. Catrica uses photography as a tool to dissect the urban structure as the physical part of social life.
Frits Gierstberg
Rotterdam 2002