A Manual For Solitude by Yannis Bournias at Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio

Presented by Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio, Yannis Bournias’ new work probes the fragile equilibrium of urban experience, shifting between the collapse of collective space and the recesses of private life.

Overview

The exhibition is structured as a photographic cycle that opens and closes with images of a city in the aftermath of an explosion. The streets appear suspended in an unseen detonation, a city caught in the instant after impact. Objects hover mid-air; a crumpled cup, a falling card, a compact disc scattering reflected light. These fragments register prior uses while already undergoing dissolution and reconfiguration. Bournias situates the viewer within a temporal fracture, a scene in suspension between disintegration and recomposition.

At night, the glow of windows reveals isolated figures framed within the architecture of their rooms. The nocturnal cityscapes focus on apartment façades. Here, looking acquires a double valence, operating both as intrusion and as invitation. Solitude is articulated spatially, inscribed in doorways, frames, and windows. The viewer inhabits a zone of ambiguity, oscillating between voyeur and participant, witness and subject.

The body appears as another site of inscription. Figures stand in exposed or provisional settings, performing solitude as gesture, posture, or withdrawal. Vulnerability and resistance intersect, while the camera records presences that test the outer edge of visibility.

A cinematic undertone runs throughout. Echoing David Lynch’s interiors, the familiar becomes unstable, carrying an undercurrent of menace. A warmly lit room reads as a stage of tension; a street bears the weight of aftermath. NOVEMBER 2024 – MARCH 2025 / A Manual For Solitude surfaces the fissures of everyday life and the atmospheres of uncertainty that surround them. Bournias positions his practice between documentation and fiction, between rupture and routine. The photographs construct a world that lingers in suspension, where light and texture unsettle the boundaries of the ordinary. In A Manual For Solitude, looking is never neutral: to view is already to participate, and every act of observation encounters a gaze that looks back.

About The Artist

Yannis Bournias is a Greek photographer, born in Athens in 1971. He studied at University of the Arts, London and he began his career as an editorial photographer collaborating with major publications such as Vogue, L’ Officiel and Wallpaper among others. Over the past 20 years, he has produced editorial content and portraits for numerous international and Greek publications. Some of the titles include L’Officiel Hommes Germany, FT How to Spend It, Wallpaper, L’Officiel, L’Officiel Hommes, Women’s Enigma, Vogue Greece, Esquire, Elle, Marie Claire, FHM Collections, and Departures. He has also been commissioned to shoot commercial campaigns for a variety of clients, including the National Theatre of Greece, the Onassis Foundation, Megaron Concert Hall of Athens, the National Bank of Greece, KORRES Natural Cosmetics, Ancient Greek Sandals, Coca Cola Light, Logitech, and Nikos Koulis Jewelry, among others. In 2011 he was invited to participate at the Athens Biennale, “Monodrome” thereby achieving important recognition. His work has appeared in numerous books and CD covers. In 2014 he created NOMAS Magazine, a biannual magazine dedicated to nomadism and distributed internationally by New Export Press, for which he now serves as the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief.