an ancient gesture, a renewed gaze.
It is hidden intimacy,
a crowd breathing as one.
An island alive with contrasts,
between profound silences
and burning colors.
Ca vit, ça vibre, ça bouge. C'est punk, destroy, et au loin on entend presque Iggy Pop qui braille The Passenger.
A lire Sicily #3 on a l'impression que le photographe aurait croisé Nobuyoshi Araki et Martin Parr pour emprunter chez l'un et l'autre le meilleur.
Parce qu'il y a dans les images de Massimo une esthétique trash, comme un Do It Yourself vital et ironique.
On peut se demander si l'image ne doit pas, parfois, se contenter d'être, tout simplement, dans sa plus parfaite simplicité, sans détours alambiqués ou faux-semblants ?
Et c'est ce à quoi nous invite ce livre.
En effet, comme il a été dit, Massimo a eu ce besoin irrépressible de sortir de la photographie métronomique et policée des studios pour se confronter, se plonger dans les rues et les ruelles de la Sicile. de sa Sicile.
Frèdèric Martin
There’s an intimacy here, but also a certain estrangement: faces half-lit, gestures caught in awkward half-beats, moments that resist narrative closure. Like the work of Moriyama or Petersen he admires, Gurciullo’s images compel not by spectacle, but by their haunted, searching quality. In his Sicily, we don’t find neat stories or postcard vistas; we encounter instead something far more honest — a living, breathing theatre, as restless and fragile as the human heart itself.
(M-Artlens mag, July 2025 )
Per gli altri ecco due siti dove potete completare la vostra collezione:
Leafing through a photography book is a full sensory experience: the images capture the gaze, while the scent of printed paper envelops and accompanies the slow, intimate pleasure of discovery, page after page.
A collection of images of the most unusual Sicily. Beyond the tourist clichès and mafia imagery. A Sicily that pulses, that vibrates with life.
A surprising living theater.
Highest quality printing - glossy paper – large format cm 24x30 –
92 pages – Limited Edition 1/300 – numbered and signed.
Leafing through a photography book is a full sensory experience: the images capture the gaze, while the scent of printed paper envelops and accompanies the slow, intimate pleasure of discovery, page after page.
A collection of images of the most unusual Sicily. Beyond the tourist clichès and mafia imagery. A Sicily that pulses, that vibrates with life.
A surprising living theater.
Highest quality printing - glossy paper – large format cm 24x30 –
92 pages – Limited Edition 1/300 – numbered and signed.
www.hoepli.it & www.shelfiecafe.it
He acknowledges how all his earlier work fed into this. Even pieces he once questioned have taken on new meaning over time. “Everything we’ve done before has helped shape who we are today. Sometimes we do work we’re not entirely satisfied with, but then, when we look back on it many years later, we can appreciate something in it.”
(M-Artlens mag July 2025)
Leafing through a photography book is a full sensory experience: the images capture the gaze, while the scent of printed paper envelops and accompanies the slow, intimate pleasure of discovery, page after page.
A collection of images of the most unusual Sicily. Beyond the tourist clichès and mafia imagery. A Sicily that pulses, that vibrates with life.
A surprising living theater.
Highest quality printing - glossy paper – large format cm 24x30 –
92 pages – Limited Edition 1/300 – numbered and signed.
Eppure la fotografia continua ad affascinare.
A collection of images of the most unusual Sicily. Beyond the tourist clichès and mafia imagery. A Sicily that pulses, that vibrates with life.
A surprising living theater.
Highest quality printing - glossy paper – large format cm 24x30 –
92 pages – Limited Edition 1/300 – numbered and signed.
"Sicily" suit cette méthode à la lettre.
A collection of images of the most unusual Sicily. Beyond the tourist clichès and mafia imagery. A Sicily that pulses, that vibrates with life.
A surprising living theater.
Highest quality printing - glossy paper – large format cm 24x30 –
92 pages – Limited Edition 1/300 – numbered and signed.
A collection of images of the most unusual Sicily. Beyond the tourist clichès and mafia imagery. A Sicily that pulses, that vibrates with life.
A surprising living theater.
Highest quality printing - glossy paper – large format cm 24x30 –
92 pages – Limited Edition 1/300 – numbered and signed.
His years in Paris laid the foundations for a career steeped in the tactile craft of photography. Working in the studio, shooting on film and spending long hours in the darkroom became his world. Over more than three decades, nudes and portraits dominated his practice, shaping a body of work that was both disciplined and deeply personal...
(M-Artlens magazine, July 2025)
Molti di questi piccoli editori promuovono un approccio sperimentale all'oggetto-libro in termini di arte grafica, stampa o rilegatura.
"Attenzione a ogni dettaglio", "avanguardia", "massima qualità", "sofisticato" sono parole che compaiono frequentemente nelle descrizioni di questi editori. Affermano un livello di competenza che è molto al di sopra degli standard generali dell'editoria.
Clèment Chèroux (MOMA–New York)
especially in a digitally saturated world. “Today, there are countless online magazines, but very few of them are truly successful,” he says. “After an overload of digital content, people have started to rediscover the pleasure of touching paper. A high-quality printed magazine, especially in the field of photography, has a much greater chance of achieving genuine success.”
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Sicile, puissance Chtonienne
Après un premier volume autopublié conçu à la façon d’un fanzine (présenté dans L’Intervalle), le corpus sicilien de Massimo Gurciullo s’enrichit d’un deuxième opus sur papier glacé, plus grand, plus large, plus implacable encore.
Il y a des filaments de lumière, une atmosphère de drame, et la beauté fantastique des monstres de la mer occupant la page à la façon des espèces invasives, ou des aliens.
Il y a de la sauvagerie, et une idée plus haute de la civilisation que celle promue par les pisse-froid du capital.
Sicily #2 est au sens fort un livre communiste, mais d’un communisme non orthodoxe, ouvert à l’étrange, à la musique des corps, à la force et fragilité de chacun.
C’est un livre noir, sensuel et nerveux.
On peut penser à l’esthétique Provoke, à la façon fiévreuse de percuter la réalité pour qu’en tombent quelques pépites d’or fin et brûlant.
L’Etna veille sur Catane, puissance tutélaire, furieuse s’il le faut.
Attentif à la surréalité du quotidien, Massimo Gurciullo ne sépare pas le banal de la possibilité de la merveille.
Un arbre mutant, drôle de voyant au gros œil mouillé, semble détenteur d’une mémoire considérable.
Regarde-moi, regarde-les tous, enfants, automobilistes et assassins, accepte-les tels qu’ils sont, et tels qu’ils se transformeront dans la nuit des pulsions.
Le principe général de l’œuvre du photographe sicilien né en 1961 est métamorphique: l’un devient l’autre qui devient autre chose encore.
Une femme en peignoir sortant de la mer, des crabes, des visages africains, une voiture lancée à vive allure.
Le destin est un alliage de stries doriques, comme sur une chemisette des années 1970, et de formes labyrinthiques, comme à Cnossos.
Sicily #2 est peuplé de déesses aux seins nus et aux cheveux d’Erèbe, de chimères voluptueuses et de bandits de sept ans.
On y est bien, parce qu’ici le mystère d’être en vie n’est pas dénié, ou aveuglément évacué.
On avance à tâtons, on ne sait pas très bien où est la sortie, mais on y participe pleinement, spectateur amené à perdre de sa superbe, élément d’un rite dont il ignore les codes
Dieu, dit-on, vomit les tièdes.
Il bénira assurément l’auteur de ce livre au jour du jugement dernier.
Fabien Ribery (lintervalle blog- 2021)
...After four years roaming Sicily’s streets and processions with a digital camera, he published Sicily in 2017 through a Portuguese publisher. Its unexpected success transformed the project into something larger: a large-format annual magazine that Gurciullo considers part diary, part travelling exhibition. By 2025, Sicily #6 had just been released and the next issue was already planned for March 2026.
For Gurciullo, print remains essential, especially in a digitally saturated world. “Today, there are countless online magazines, but very few of them are truly successful,” he says. “After an overload of digital content, people have started to rediscover the pleasure of touching paper. A high-quality printed magazine, especially in the field of photography, has a much greater chance of achieving genuine success.” ( M-Artlens magazine, July 2025)
Paris, too, had changed. It no longer pulsed with the same creative spark that had first drawn him in. So he returned home to Sicily — this time with a fresh perspective and without the weight of the studio.
It was there that his most defining project took shape. Sicily began as a personal exploration, far removed from tourist clichés and tired mafia tropes. “It’s a collection of images of the most unusual Sicily,” he explains. “A Sicily that beats, that vibrates with life. A surprising living theatre.”
Noi del mondo della fotografia potremo continuare a spedire libri e magazine dichiarando "GIFT" e un valore inferiore a 100 dollari.
