Malena Mazza: Wonder Woman
August 10th, 2020
Italian photographer Malena Mazza has been breaking boundaries throughout her illustrious career. Starting with moving image, then on to finding her unique perspective on commercial and personal work; she has created an aesthetic universe of strong, empowered and yet often erotically charged women. We spoke to Malena to learn more about how she started out, creating a visual point of view, and where she sees the future of the photography industry going.
POL: First up, you’ve had an incredible career to date, working with so many fascinating people and in so many roles. Can you introduce our readers to your background and how you first got your foot on the professional ladder?
MM: The starting point of any professional experience is always fundamental. Of course you can take detours and make U-turns, but the point from which we start is what defines the new roads that we decide to tackle later.
My career as a photographer has an anomalous starting point compared to many of my colleagues. In fact, almost all photographers I know dream of shooting movies, and often abandon the static images to move towards the moving one. The opposite was true for me.
I started right from the moving pictures and not as a director, but as a camera technician. So not as a racing driver but as a mechanic, working directly on the Arriflex 35mm or 70mm Blimpata, starting in the most technical way possible.
I was the first woman in Europe to hold the role of Assistant to the Director of Photography - that is “camera assistant” - a role that has always been considered male. Also it was a role that is very physically tiring. I speak of course of when shooting was on negative film, and I had to load it all into the black bag, without seeng anything, with huge machines, huge trolleys, dollies etc. Now everything is digital it is much simpler (and more light!).
“Ever since I was young I felt a fascination for photographs that generate emotions and touch sensitivity in a way that it is impossible to translate into words”
Beyond the mechanical and physical aspect, that role taught me a lot because I had the privilege of physically seeing behind the lens, operating on the optics in real time, understanding what the director saw or wanted to see, seeing first hand what a director of photography was able to express with the shooting angles, and above all watching the importance of light in each photographic shot. It was a unique and powerful school that had a lot to teach a receptive young artist.
Another important point was that I started working on commercials. Commercial work therefore did not come secondary to me. In advertising the image must be very powerful to communicate a precise message and that is entirely fundamental in my work.
I was lucky because, at that time there were large budgets which attracted the biggest names in the cinema and I worked with the most famous directors and directors of photography in the world who work in Italian advertising. This included: Hugh Hudson, Ridley Scott, Sergio Leone, Win Wenders, Fellini, The Traviani Brothers, Robert Fraisse, David Thorpe, Fabrizio Ferri, Giovanni Gastel and Dario Fo.
So I had the privilege of working with famous people and seeing their use of light across all types of situations and kinds of photography. Alongside the availability of big budgets giving us the opportunity to shoot with the most advanced and expensive technologies.
For me, cinematography was the gym where I practiced lighting and story telling techniques. A language that I treasured and which remained with me even when I decided to switch to photography, through which I could produce more personal expressions.
POL: What was it that drew you away from moving image and advertising towards photography? Do you think it was something that was always in you?
MM: Ever since I was young I felt a fascination for photographs that generate emotions and touch sensitivity in a way that it is impossible to translate into words (or they need many words to get to the same point). This communication passes through the image and it is precisely this type of communication that affects in a direct, precise way, creating an almost surgical, symbolic and very provocative narrative.
Looking at a photo you can have a suggestion that makes you enter in the fantastic and prodigious world of the imaginary, where you also abandon heaviness and limits and you can dive in with creative lightness. With photography you are communicating at a different level from what we are used to, at a level that I would like to call a higher plain, but in reality it is rather just in an entirely different dimension.
POL: How do you navigate the relationship then, between your artistic love for photography but also working in commercial spheres? Are you always able to flex your creative muscles?
MM: For me, the greatest satisfaction is being able to create something artistic while shooting commissioned or commercial work. Only thought this can I feel part of contemporary period and also inside the historical social-cultural age in which I live.
The commercial aspect may limit in some ways, but it is nice to be able to express yourself in a confined environment because your creativity is put to the test. My experience of advertising in this way was important, because you know that you have a precise message to communicate and you need to do it through a few shots.
It is no different from what a carpenter does when he builds a custom furniture. If it is an artistic spirit, it can move within the client's specifications and still create extraordinary and unique pieces.
The history of Italian art is made up of artisans and patrons, of art shops that produced great artistic expressions. In this sense I like to call myself an artisan of photography because it is clear that although I can work on a commercial project, within that, I always try to express myself artistically.
POL: Working across different genres in photography (including commercial photography, art, fashion, portraiture and beauty) how would you define your sense of aesthetics?
MM: For me aesthetics should not be understood as the beauty of the subject but the beauty of the image. There are thousands of examples of photos of things that are ugly or dramatic, and of images voluntarily built as unpleasant things, yet from the photo they acquire a beauty, a nobility, and a universality.
“It is no different from what a carpenter does when he builds a custom furniture. If it is an artistic spirit, it can move within the client’s specifications and still create extraordinary and unique pieces.”
POL: Across all of your series there is always a sense of narrative for each shoot. Where do you get your ideas from?
MM: I get my ideas from life. For me, usually every shoot starts with a story.
When I shoot, I always try to prepare myself, studying the subject, imagining how to represent it, thinking about experiences, looking at the archive of images that we always see every second, voluntarily or involuntarily.
The image usually is something you’ve already seen before and are trying to stop or build again, whether you are in the studio or in a location. In that moment there is always a "gap" that makes it unattainable, unrepeatable, unreliable, because images freeze only when photographing them.
A photo stops time, entropy no longer increases, the evolutionary process stops, chaos stops at the moment we take a photograph, be it a real or fantasy image. I have always found this duality fascinating: the inability to reproduce something exactly as seen because there will be always an element of diversity, and yet a photo has the the ability to block the flow of events there in space, in time, in my human experience.
This applies to the story enclosed in one shot as well as to the emotion that the image gives off.
POL: Looking at the women in the your imagery, they are always depicted as very strong and empowered but also as very erotic. How would you describe your woman?
MM: The woman I photograph is a normal woman that has always many things to do - like cooking, looking after the kids, cleaning house and so on, but she has also to go out to work.
She does many things more than a man, but nevertheless, she doesn’t forget her femininity.
She represents all modern women, for me, we are all Wonder Woman!
POL: When creating this strong woman you have to find models who also embody this strength and sensuality, what’s that relationship like with you and your models?
MM: The first magical thing is when you choose them. You immediately feel which one is OK for you.
What most bewitches me is that the models I choose to photograph always move in space exactly as I would like them to do, but without the need for explanations, without words and without any kind of indication, without me saying anything. I can explain to them what I would like and, despite this, sometimes they surprise me by exceeding my own expectations and my thoughts, and going exactly in the direction that I desired.
POL: You have been published in many books, held over 50 exhibitions of your work, been showcased at museums and had pieces sold at auction at Sotheby’s, is there something you’d still love to do but haven’t had the chance yet?
MM: Yes sure, there are many things!
First I would have a permanent exhibition at Tate, at Castello di Rivoli and also at the Guggenheim.
I also would produce a photographic book about sociocultural feminine transformation over the last 40 years.
“She does many thing more than a man, but nevertheless, she doesn’t forget her femininity.
She represents all modern women, for me, we are all Wonder Woman!”
POL: You mentioned earlier that you originally took on a job role that was considered mostly male, and even being a photographer has historically been a very male dominated industry. Looking at this idea of sociocultural feminine transformation, have you seen opportunities for women change as the industry has progressed?
MM: I believe that the variation in photography is made by individual sensitivities that are different across every person regardless of gender. In fact today I think there are many more female photographers because photography has moved from this "technical" profession and has become more about sensitivity, now there is more of a focus on point of view.
POL: Your work has appeared in many magazines and publications, have you felt a change in editorial work with the rise of social media and online publications?
MM: Yes, all arts usually in times of crisis (or so history teaches us) become more interesting, push boundaries and become more open minded. Instead now all art is becoming more popular and so more banal.
POL: What do you think the future of fashion photography will be like?
MM: I think the future will be something unexpected, but hopefully something of quality.
POL: What are you working on right now? What’s next for you?
MM: I’m working on my next two exhibitions, opening in February in Genoa and the second in March in Milan. Also I’ve commercial works underway for September, shooting for perfume and jewellery brands.
About Malena Mazza
Malena Mazza was born in Bologna, Italy and moved to Milan to attend its Cinema School.
She started her professional career as director assistant at Milan’s Production House Film 77, and soon became First Assistant for internationally renowned directors such as the Taviani brothers, Michelangelo Antonioni, Maurizio Zaccaro, Giancarlo Soldi, Jerad de Batista, Jacques Venait, Robert Fraisse, and many others.
Malena’s photography has been on display in exhibitions at the Biennale di Venezia, La Triennale di Milano, and the Louvre in Paris, and on the Jumbotron in New York City’s Time Square in 2014.
She has presented her work on several occasions around the world in solo exhibitions and published several books on a variety of topics connected with photography. Her works are permanently displayed in museums and public venues and are owned by important art collectors around the world. Between 2002 and 2015 she exhibited her work in over 50 solo and group exhibitions, alongside showcasing her pieces and Art Basel Miami in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Every year since 2005, her artworks have been sold at Sotheby’s auctions.