Like Canaletto, who focused on representing the various facets of Venice in his “vedute”, Laurent Dequick applies his own photographic testimony to the City of Masks, finding a subject here that corresponds to his work on the proliferation of urban spaces. The photographs that he produced there represent emblematic sites such as Saint Mark’s Square, the island of San Giorgio Maggiore or the canals and their gondolas dotted all over the city. In his opinion, these public spaces differ from those encountered in other Western cities, owing to their lagoonal character and perpetual movement.His photographs, made up of visual elements that are combined, superimposed and merged, summarise various points of view of a single place, in order to better recover its essence. Laurent Dequick is thus one of the many artists, writers, architects, academics, and merchants who have been inspired by the magnificence of the city for centuries.

**The artist: Laurent Dequick**

This 40 year old photographer is an architect by profession. There are signs of this in his work as it is first of all a reflection on contemporary cities and more specifically about the proliferation of modern urban space. Laurent Dequick's purpose is to accurately convey an impression of frenzy which results from a density of population and activity in urban areas: "Along the streets, the lights, the noise, the traffic, the swarms of pedestrians, the blend of smells, are so fascinating that no single shot can entirely capture it. Do choices have to be made? I don't think so; I don't want to?"