Guido Mocafico

Guido Mocafico is a specialist in still life photography. Drawing from highly symbolical elements of decay in Western culture such as flowers, snakes or spiders, Mocafico’s images blur the line between still life paintings and photographic immortalisations of pulsating jeopardy. In the tradition of the allegorical art of Vanitas, Mocafico confronts desire and death, eros and thanatos always accompanied by an undertone of superficiality and lure. 

Guido Mocafico's fascination with Leopold (1822-1895) and his son Rudolf (1857-1939) Blaschka's glass models of invertebrate animals (jellyfish, snails, sea anemones, corals, hidroids, starfish, sea-cucumbers, squid, seaslugs and bivalves) and plants are paid homage to in this series, in which Mocafico portrays the Blaschka's dedication to their craft. Originally from Bohemia, but based in Dresden, the Blaschka's were glassmakers working from the mid-1800s until the 1930s. These masterpieces, created over both their lifetimes, are manufactured out of clear, coloured and painted glass and still exist in several museum collectives, including Harvard University Herbaria (Cambridge, Massachusetts), the Corning Museum of Glass/Cornell University and the Natural History Museums in London and Ireland, amongst others.

 

The Blaschka family made their objects only on commission for the institutions' study purposes at that time, and they were never sold to the general public. Mocafico's fascination with the story behind these has led him to be granted access by the museums' curators to photograph them in his own unique style.