Marco Sanges, the Rome-born photographer now based in London, brings his latest exhibition Reveries to the elegant surrounds of Robertaebasta’s Pimlico Road gallery on 20th November, marking a significant homecoming for an artist who has spent his career straddling the line between fashion and fine art, between the digital and the resolutely analogue.

For those familiar with Sanges’s trajectory – from his early days working in his uncle’s photographic laboratory through his tenure shooting for Vogue Italia, this exhibition represents both a continuation and a crystallisation of themes he has explored throughout series like Wunderkamera, Circumstances and Big Scenes. Yet there’s something about Reveries that feels more assured, more willing to dwell in ambiguity and discomfort.

The exhibition’s central conceit, as articulated by gallery manager Giorgia Zen, captures that peculiar sensation of waking from a dream when reality feels suspended, “Was it real? Did I dream it?” It’s an apt description for work that has always existed in cinema’s shadowlands. Sanges creates photographs in sequence, with each of them telling a unique, multi-layered story influenced by the luminous black-and-white films of the silent era. This cinematic DNA runs through every frame of Reveries.

Marco Sanges, Brothels n. 2 (Brothels series, 2005). © by Sanges.

What makes this body of work particularly compelling is Sanges’s steadfast commitment to analogue photography in an age of digital omnipotence. All works in Reveries are shot entirely on film, a choice that is far from nostalgic affectation. As Sanges himself has explained, shooting film forces him to slow down, compose his shot carefully, meter his light correctly, and wait for the right moment. This deliberation shows in every image. Nothing feels hurried or happenstance. Each photograph is a staged tableau where figures are choreographed with what the press materials aptly describe as “the deliberate precision of a film director.”

The comparisons to Helmut Newton’s elegance and Man Ray’s surreal wit are earned. Like Newton, Sanges understands how opulence can unsettle when placed against decay; like Man Ray, he grasps how the uncanny emerges from the familiar made strange. But Sanges has cultivated his own distinctive idiom, one that encompasses Byzantine excess, Surrealist irony and Gothic romance.

The work draws inspiration from surrealism and the visual and performing arts of the 1920s and 1930s, with Sanges creating a feeling of transgression in the way he deploys these historical touchstones. Often larger than life, his characters inhabite spaces between gender and class, between the grotesque and the beautiful – exist in a perpetual state of performance. They are not simply photographed; they are caught mid-gesture in an elaborate theatrical production where the curtain never quite falls.

From the left: Marco Sanges, Reveries n. 47 (Reveries series, 2005) and Wunderkamera n. 2 (Wunderkamera series, 2017). Both © by Sanges.

What prevents this from becoming mere pastiche is the psychological depth Sanges brings to his constructed worlds. There is an enchanting yet dark side to his work, an intriguing depth that appears destined to highlight the drama of life. The “gentle confusion and wonder” promised by the exhibition actually cuts deeper; these are images that confront human vulnerability and fragility, even as they revel in artifice and theatricality.

The technical mastery is undeniable. Sanges’ attention to light, colour, and form is meticulous, and the prints – silver gelatin processed in the traditional manner – will likely possess that particular depth and tonal richness that digital reproduction simply cannot replicate. He prints photographs straight from the negative in the darkroom, maintaining a connection to photographic craft that becomes increasingly rare.

Marco Sanges is an artist who knows exactly what he’s doing and executes it with unwavering conviction. His work appears in the permanent collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Center for Creative Photography in Arizona, testament to a vision that has found its audience and critical recognition.

Reveries promises to be a sumptuous visual experience, a chance to step into worlds where logic dissolves and ambiguity reigns. For those who appreciate photography as constructed narrative, as baroque spectacle, as slow-crafted art in defiance of digital instantaneity, this exhibition offers much to contemplate. Just don’t expect easy answers or comfortable resolutions. Like the best dreams, Sanges’ reveries linger precisely because they refuse to fully explain themselves.

Reveries by Marco Sanges runs from 20th November 2025 to 15th January 2025 at Robertaebasta London, 85 Pimlico Road, SW1W 8PH.

Author: Julia Pasarón

Lead image: Marco Sanges, Circumstances n. 2 (Circumstances series, 2014). © by Sanges. Image cropped from the original due to formatting restrictions.