Robert Bianchi

The first time I met Robert Bianchi, I had gone to visit his wife, Lynn Bianchi, to ask if she would consider serving as a juror for one of Decagon Gallery’s exhibitions. When I arrived, Robert welcomed me in and made lunch for us. We sat together and talked for a while—about photography, about the strange paths that artists take, and about the long lives that images sometimes lead.

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After lunch, Robert said he wanted to show me some of his work.

What unfolded was not a quick portfolio viewing, but the quiet revelation of a lifetime spent exploring photography as a medium of imagination. Robert’s images move fluidly between portraiture, constructed tableaux, and dreamlike composites of the human body. In some series he photographs small groups of models and later combines them into complex visual structures—figures merging, multiplying, or dissolving into one another—creating images that feel both physical and psychological at the same time.

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Robert’s career stretches back decades and includes exhibitions and collections in major institutions. He was the first photographer given a one-person exhibition at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, and his work is held in collections such as the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, among others.

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But that afternoon, none of that mattered very much.

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What struck me most was the sense of curiosity still alive in the work—the feeling that Robert is still searching for something inside the photographic image. His pictures are not simply about bodies or faces; they are attempts to reveal states of mind, emotional landscapes, and the strange interior spaces where imagination and identity meet.

By the time I left that day, the decision had already made itself. The work deserved to be seen again, gathered together and presented as a coherent exhibition.
 

This exhibition at Decagon Gallery is the result of that afternoon’s conversation and discovery.

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It is a chance to encounter the work of a photographer who has spent a lifetime exploring what the human figure can express—not only physically, but psychologically and poetically as well.

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John Manno / director