The lens and the archive
Mauro Fiorese lived his life through the viewfinder, documenting the spaces between what is seen and what remains hidden. Born in Verona, Italy, in 1970, he spent decades refining a way of looking that focused on the edges of reality. His training at the IUAV in Venice, under the guidance of Italo Zannier, provided him with the technical foundation to pursue subjects that often lacked a clear identity. He was a photographer, curator, and educator who found meaning in the decontextualized object and the quiet corners of institutions.
His work often moved between the real and the imaginary. In his series U.PHO.S. - Unidentified Photographic Subjects, he presented sixty photographs where subjects remained mysteriously difficult to name. These images, sometimes mounted on aluminium without frames, captured objects that had undergone a transformation through his lens. He paired this photographic work with a video mockumentary and investigation documents, creating a layered archive of things that seemed to exist in a state of disappearance.
The weight of the unseen
Much of his focus turned toward the hidden repositories of history. In the series Treasure Rooms, he explored the museum vaults and storage facilities of Italian institutions, including the Uffizi Gallery. He photographed twenty-six deposits, bringing the contents of these closed spaces into the light for the first time. This work was not about grand displays but about the quiet presence of items held in reserve. His Treasure Rooms of Pompeii Ruins followed a similar interest in the layers of the past.
Other projects addressed more personal and social realities. The series Corpolibero examined the experience of disability, a long-term inquiry that earned him the 1997 Top 100 World Photographers List from the Ernst Haas/Golden Light Award. Later, his work became deeply tied to his own physical struggle. Following a diagnosis in 2014, he documented his experience with stage four lung cancer in a visual diary titled libra in cancer. These images included intimate portraits of chemotherapy treatments and moments shared with his daughter, Leda.
Teaching and recognition
Beyond his own photographic practice, Fiorese was a presence in the classrooms of Italy and abroad. He held positions as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Verona and taught at the University of Verona, the European Institute of Design in Milan, and within the study abroad program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His lectures also reached audiences at Lamar University in Texas and the International Center of Photography in New York.
His career was marked by several specific honors and inclusions in permanent collections:
- The 2015 Codice MIA Award in Milan.
- A medal of representation from the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, in 2011.
- Inclusion in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas.
- Works held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.
- Presence in the Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea in Cinisello Balsamo, Italy.
He died in 2016 at the age of forty-six. His life's work remains a record of both the institutional archive and the individual experience, captured through a lens that sought out the unidentified and the overlooked.
