Carlo Gianferro

Gypsy Interiors is a collection of portraits capturing the sedate and decorous intimacy of an outwardly loud and gregarious people.

Carlo Gianferro has discovered a profound – almost religious – ethnic performance enacted by proud and wealthy Roma deep within their own private quarters; staged amidst ancient furniture, tapestries, paintings, sacred icons, porcelains, stairs, mirrors, and so much more. Their accumulated wealth is demonstrably on display as prestige items in their palatial homes and villas, distributed throughout expansive rooms and in corridors and foyers leading to and from them – and yet
abruptly offset by empty spaces awaiting to be filled.

These are unprecedented portraits of a long underground and secretive society suddenly and mysteriously willing to surface and make an extravagant ritual announcement to the outside world of their material achievement and affluence.What actually happens in this corridor is anyone’s guess. Gypsy Interiors reveal little more about the Roma than the little that is already known about them. The photographs document mostly arbitrary, inspired and irrational gestures in response to often ambiguous impulses. In the main, Gypsy Interiors are power displays of prestige items by competitive Roma families.