Joseph Rovegno – Only For Now

Just for one moment in time not tomorrow… or the next day, it is… Only For Now.

So reads the cover of Joseph Rovegno’s latest publication Only For Now, released in 2023 by Origini Edizioni. It is a fitting continuation in both photographer’s and publisher’s oeuvres, with Origini Edizioni’s books featuring exquisite designs and handmade monographs, and Rovegno’s work similarly making use of a delicate balance of graphic and physical elements   The collaboration seems natural and inevitable given their clear common interest in handmaking artists’ books and attentive focus on materials.

The content of Only For Now is rooted in the pure expression of Rovegno’s unique visual language: free and unconfined photography with sewn elements and emotive hand-written inscriptions across and around pictures. The images themselves mainly depict the artist’s life in his hometown, New York City. From the captions written on the cover image, which depicts a smoke-obstructed view of roadworks on the street, we know that the work is created with the context of living with mental illness: at the time of the making of the photograph in 2019, Rovegno was ‘afraid to go outside’ and ‘afraid to talk to anyone’. Another sentence reads: ‘But that’s how it feels living with mental illness – one season seems like it should be your last – the next one feels like it’s the first one of the rest of your life’. This situates the work as a representation of the artist’s experiences with mental illness, as well as a method of reflection and contemplation on this time.

The content of Only For Now is rooted in the pure expression of Rovegno’s unique visual language: free and unconfined photography with sewn elements and emotive hand-written inscriptions across and around pictures.

The attention paid to the physical form of the book is immediately apparent; it arrives in a transparent sleeve with wide zigzag stitches along the sides, allowing us to see the front cover. Attached is a sewn-in print, folded, with the photographer’s name and title of the publication on its outside. The image within establishes the striking visual language that is consistent throughout this monograph and Rovegno’s work as a whole: the print has been cut into multiple pieces and stitched back together, featuring handwritten inscriptions. Everything about the reading experience reminds us of its carefully crafted nature.

Only For Now feels well-made and is undeniably beautiful. Unwaxed string runs down the hand-bound spine, the open edge of the page is visibly uncropped, and we can see the untrimmed thread from the sewing-in of the prints between the pages. All these details feel well-thought out and evidence the handmade processes used, before even turning the first page. Every detail in the book’s construction is considered and celebrated, used as a vehicle to convey meaning.

The first page of the book is concealed by a layer of translucent paper, behind which is a flash-lit image of a smoking manhole cover with uneven borders, the developer painted onto the paper by hand. Handwritten text across the image reads ‘Even when unexpected a fleeting moment can mean something. One fleeting moment, whether in control or not will change everything.’ This further establishes the main communication of Rovegno’s work: that any point in time might be significant, and that we should experience all these moments accordingly, bringing to mind Paul Graham’s a shimmer of possibility or Rinko Kawauchi’s Utatane, with their elevation of seemingly unimportant intervals in life.

The following page of the book features a stream of soap suds running down a street, accompanied by a sewn-on image of a cleaning team and a text discussing the washing away of the dirt of the city, reminiscent of Travis Bickle’s monologue about the rain “washing the scum from the streets” in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 fable Taxi Driver. Unlike Bickle, Rovegno is accepting of New York City’s stains: ‘This city is dirty but it is my city for better or worse’, showing presence, introspection and wabi-sabi – a Japanese concept regarding the appreciation of life’s imperfect nature, and its inner beauty.

It is clear, and reassuring, to see that this object has been made by a person, and there are traces of hand-making on every page.

Acetate prints vary the presentation of images, bound to the page along one side and encouraging the reader to lift them. Black thread spans the height of the page, becoming a feature by contrasting with the paper. It is thin and bobs left and right in a slightly imperfect line, and on some pages is torn and knotted. These imperfections interact well with the images and texts, as well as the physical form of the book in its entirety, echoing the sentiment that life is imperfect, but that is what makes it worth living. It is clear, and reassuring, to see that this object has been made by a person, and there are traces of hand-making on every page. There is a spread near the end of the book that features nothing but a sewn black line spanning the height of the left-hand side, the method of attachment of a print to the previous page but simultaneously a pause in the sequence and an introspection on the fabrication of the book. The stitching is spotlit here to a higher degree, and we are invited to consider its meaning as a work of art rather than as the simple necessity of fixing the print to the page. Throughout the sequence of the book, there are several images which have been printed, torn, and stitched back together before being scanned, an effective and thought-provoking technique.

As is clear, the project is much more than pictures on pages. In the centrefold of the book is a four-panel photomontage, an aerial view of the metropolis, the bottom right panel replaced by a smaller version of the complete photomontage, creating a profound effect of scale. Printed-on threads interact with the saddle-stitch of the spine forming an intriguing counterplay, both remaining untrimmed and fraying.

The book is situated decidedly in the present, life taken one day at a time, and readers are urged to embrace this ethos; the nature of its form demands attention and interaction.

One of the book’s most successful photographs depicts the stretching shadows of silhouettes walking a waterfront, with multiple inscriptions, both typed and hand-written. The typed texts are diary entries discussing the poor state of the Rovegno’s mental health during a stay in a psychiatric hospital in 2016, with the handwritten texts, written in 2022, containing his reflections on this time. The picture has been torn in two and stitched back together, which in this instance is particularly poetic, representing a life experience which is at times fractious and fragmented, held together by transient, sympathetic moments. The nature of the work, and especially pages like this, might present the risk of being exclusionary and inward-looking because they are particular to the author’s own experience, but creative elements such as the sewing of the print, as well as the format and sequencing of the book, do a great deal to keep these narratives accessible and engaging for the reader. Rovegno’s visual language is effective at communicating the subtexts of the work, and makes Only For Now not about mental illness, but rather about recovery and finding fulfilment in life.

The publisher’s website refers to the work as reflecting the methodology of Action-Painting and Neo-Expressionism, i.e. emphasis on the processes of creating art as a form of performance, and almost more important than the outcome itself. I see these parallels in the concept and execution of the work, which suggests that the significance and meaning of an act is in its doing and that the joy of life is simply in its experience. It is a counter to a recent wave of elevated documentary in which concept and research matters above all else, arguing that the most important interactions we have can be fleeting, and on the surface, inconsequential. The book centres around this, elevating these brief moments: a person carrying a bouquet of flowers, the washing of a pavement, rays of light shimmering through blinds.

The book is situated decidedly in the present, life taken one day at a time, and readers are urged to embrace this ethos; the nature of its form demands attention and interaction. The experience of reading it is enjoyably demanding by virtue of the many ways in which we engage with it: the lifting of an acetate print, the unfolding of a stitched-together page, or sometimes the near-emptiness of a spread. At a time where social media is by far the biggest method of consumption for photographers and bookmakers, it is key that artists continue to make work in physical formats. Only For Now is an excellent argument for the power and beauty of handmade books, as well as being Rovegno’s most refined work yet.



All Rights Reserved: Text © Nate Davies
Images © Joseph Rovegno/Origini Edizioni