The “SLIDES/diapositive” art project by Eraldo Mauro, begun in Venice and then touching on important national and international museums and galleries, is based on the evocative power of the perception of colour and on the common denominator linking alchemy, glass and slides.

Like the gold of the alchemists, glass is the result of a process of transmutation of matter which, through fire, changes from opaque to “lustrous”, “transparent”. In the alchemist’s crucibleathanor, opaque lead (symbol of the darkness of the mind) is transformed into lustrous gold (intellectual light), just as opaque sand becomes transparent glass in the crucible of the master glassmaker; in a similar way, an opaque subject becomes transparent if seen in a slide. All three can therefore be understood (in physical or symbolic terms) as “Places of Transformation”.

Mauro’s installation recreates the interior of a photographic laboratory in which new works are displayed, together with others created for the occasion.