A publication that aligns editorial restraint with tactile sensitivity—structuring a dialogue between artists through time, space and material encounter.

 

Layers of Time: Morandi & Ralaivao translates a visual and conceptual dialogue between two artists, separated by decades, into print. While working in different contexts, both Morandi and Ralaivao explore still life: the quiet intensity of light, surface, and form. Rather than document the show, the design rearticulates its ideas through a new material form. Typography, layout, materiality and image function as a cohesive system – each element working in relation to the others to carry forward the show’s logic while shifting its rhythm. The book slows the encounter, making space for intimacy, layering and sustained attention.

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The typographic system, developed in parallel with the exhibition, carries temporal weight. Its internal contrasts – between historical reference and editorial sharpness, structure and softness – echo the exhibition’s central concern: how influence moves through time. Pacing and layout are equally deliberate. Negative space, sequencing and compositional variation create a measured rhythm, balancing stillness with intensity. Cropped image details draw the eye to surface and texture; shifts in scale and density mirror the exhibition’s spatial dynamics, encouraging close, attentive looking.

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Material decisions extend the book’s conceptual structure. A translucent opening sequence overlays text and image, evoking temporality – influence glimpsed through layers, never fully fixed. Later, uncoated pages from Ralaivao’s sketchbook introduce a tactile shift that gestures toward process. The cover resists imagery, relying on typographic composition alone: “MORANDI” and “RALAIVAO” held in quiet tension – separated, yet in dialogue. Every material and structural choice reflects the exhibition’s meditation on time, attention, and influence. Layers of Time is not a record, but a continuation. A form of looking, made tactile. You can view the exhibition identity in detail here.

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Artists: Giorgio Morandi & Alexis Ralaivao 

Gallery: Nahmad Projects

Art Direction, Design & Layout: Billie Temple

Coordinated by Julia Lucero and Mary Lodge

Text: Lock Kresler, Paul Coldwell, Alexis Ralaivao

Installation Photography: Stephen White & Co 

Production: Roy Killen / Product photography: George House