The environmental installation Anastasis (άνάστασις) was conceived by Giorgio Andreotta Calò for the spaces of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, where the artist had been invited to carry out an unprecedented site-specific intervention, curated by the institution’s director Jacqueline Grandjean and visible to the public from 24 May to 23 September 2018.

Annunciation is part of a body of photographic works created over the period the exhibition was open and has as its subject the Mariavensters, stained-glass windows depicting scenes from Mary’s life.

The project, of a markedly experimental character from the technical viewpoint, entailed the production of photographic contact prints in natural light. 

Normally, in the process of analogue photographic development in a dark room, the making of photographic contact prints utilizes the light of an enlarger, with the developed photographic film (negative) placed in direct contact with the photosensitive paper – the length of exposure to the light is based on the density of the negative, with the aim of obtaining a positive image of good quality. 

The procedure adopted in the Oude Kerk was similar, but with some important differences: it was not artificial light that was utilized but the light that entered naturally through the window, and therefore with no possibility of adjusting its intensity; the processing, in practice, was carried out by means of a contraption in which were assembled, for each panel of the window, an outer pane of glass, a red filter, the sheet of photographic paper and a ‘backing’ of support for the previous layers that made it possible to attach them to the windows.

The end result was a negative mirror image of the original subject, consisting of panes of leaded glass ‘in positive’. 

The works were concentrated on a section of the windows made up of 48 panels, and in particular on the scene of the Annunciation depicted in them. An iconic image of the angel stands out in front of the Virgin Mary, announcing to her the immaculate conception. The ‘illustrated’ narration dates from a time of widespread illiteracy and assigns great importance to gesture and its symbology. The angel’s right hand is stretched upwards, in the direction of the divine, while his left hand indicates Mary’s womb and at the same time a lily, symbol of purity. But the lily is also a symbol of death and the passing of Christ is already prefigured in the scene – the first element of the narrative contains within it both the beginning and the end of the Gospel story. 

The light passing through the window is charged with the image represented and oxidises the photosensitive paper, leaving, as in the Turin Shroud, a reflected copy of the Annunciation. By proposing the image in negative the photograph inverts the historical time of the story. The linear route leading from life to prefigured death is reversed (alluding to the resurrection of Christ evoked in the permanent work installed in the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre).

In order to emphasize the graphic reading of the scene and isolate its figures processes were used to screen the window.

A transparent film was applied to part of the windows and then painted black. The colour prevented the entry of light and its consequent photographic impression, preserving the white tone of the photosensitive paper. The masking eliminated secondary elements of the narration, making the fundamental components of the event evident and manifest. The procedure also generated an atmosphere of suspense, with the image immersed in a white glow that alludes to mirage and hallucination. In addition, the utilization of multiple layers of red filter permitted a clearer emergence of part of the image in some cases, including the face of the angel.

The work was carried out at different moments characterized by different lighting conditions over the course of the summer, so as to vary the intensity of the natural light entering through the window.