Fast or die
Fast or Die is Alex Fakso's new photographic project delving into the metropolitan subways of London, the US, Russia and Japan.
Metropolitan narratives immortalized in 60 shots: portraits of people running, taking the subway, sleeping on docks, sneaking into tunnels. Fakso follows his subjects taking part in the action, moving along with them, following them until he manages to document instants and moments of their days, thus creating snapshots that contain stories, details and sensations.
Following on from his previous photography book Heavy Metal, also published by Damiani, this time Fakso expands his view beyond graffiti and tracks a robust framework of the metropolitan scenario embracing the people who inhabit it. Images of ordinary people, common people plunged into the underground chaos: Fast or Die is a powerful photostrip describing the world through the subways: A report of the contemporary underground.
Fast or Die is the second photography book of Alex Fakso's work to be published by Damiani. The introduction to the book is written by New York City based photographer Alessandro Zuek Simonetti, who features in the photographs of Alex's earlier series Heavy Metal and Andrea Caputo, author of the "All City Writers" who has written extensively on the graffiti scene in Europe. The initiative is supported by his childhood friend Andrea Rosso, creative director of 55DSL.
CAMERA GESTURES
The security subject is a major issue in contemporary politics.
The control and monitoring of infrastructure systems are key objectives to be achieved.
The terrorism threat has generated an obsessive monitoring which sinks the eye of the CCTV cameras from the roadside into the underground, where the crowded trains are exposed to the greatest risks.
If You See Something, Say Something says the most recurrent poster in the new York City subway: a reminder to be vigilant addressed to common people who, after the attacks at the beginning of the millennium to trains and subways, seem condemned to live in anxiety.
Alex Fakso's research shows a fragile and passable border, in an age where everything seems under control.
Every day dozens of teenagers break up the concept of security, which can sometimes take the shape of multiple tags, and other times of those coloured pieces that for half a century have been travelling painted on train coaches.
In Fast or Die, the diaphragm tightens on the microcosm stirring in the underground network. not only does the term underground point out a marginal and transgressive aspect of the young generations,but in this case the word coincides with the same scope. In the scenarios of moscow, Tokyo, London and other major metropolitan areas, Alex Fakso portrays the incursions of the writers, alternating them with the daily lives of those who use the subway only to get around.
But the work of Alex Fakso goes beyond the mere documentation and becomes an act that runs parallel to the writer's. The preparation, the stealthy entry, the action and the completion of the gesture are part of a common routine.
Who paints shares it with the photographer as if he was an accomplice in the success of the work. For this reason, Alex Fakso's shots are an enrichment: they document the extreme and elusive discipline of graffiti, but they also point out that the final work is sometimes marginal compared to the experience itself. An individual and radical performance that only few can share, only few can portray.
by Andrea Caputo