Matts Leiderstam, (b. 1956 Gothenburg, Sweden), After Image (Piazza del Popolo before 1751), 2012, Chromogenic color print, Museum purchase with funds provided by Wellesley College Friends of Art 2012.14

This print creates a passageway into the personal bookshelves of Swedish artist Matts Leiderstam and reshapes the art historical narratives he finds there. In the After Image series, Leiderstam captures two-page spreads of the books in his studio. Here, a book opens to a 1750 etching by Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi that portrays the twin churches and Egyptian obelisk at the center of the Piazza del Popolo in Rome. Above the book, Leiderstam’s hands hold his own color painting based on Piranesi’s etching, as well as a magnifying glass. He draws the viewer’s attention to the base of the Flaminian Obelisk, where a group of spectators gaze at the ancient Egyptian monument, which was first brought to Rome in 10 BCE. Leiderstam’s use of multiple media, such as painting and photography, reframes historical artworks such as Piranesi’s etching, which itself depicts an older artwork, the obelisk, at its center. The performative quality of After Image (Piazza del Popolo before 1751) highlights the way that images and their meanings change over time.

Dominique Mickiewicz ‘22