{"id":2034,"date":"2026-01-12T19:53:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T00:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artfineline.com\/?page_id=2034"},"modified":"2026-09-03T12:01:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T17:01:05","slug":"press-kit-skin-and-grace","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/artfineline.com\/ja\/press-kit-skin-and-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Kit – Skin and Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Press & Media<\/strong><\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Press Kit<\/h4>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Skin and Grace<\/em>
Book & Documentary \u2013 Fall 2026<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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SKIN and Grace<\/em>: Igor Mattio\u2019s New Photobook and Documentary on Cuba\u2019s Male Ballet Dancers<\/h4>

A photographic and documentary project by Igor Mattio<\/em><\/p>

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New York, NY \u2014 September 2026 \u2014<\/strong> Artfineline announces the Fall 2026 release of Skin and Grace<\/em>, a new photobook and 60-minute documentary film by Italian-born, New York\u2013based artist Igor Mattio.<\/p>

PROJECT OVERVIEW<\/h4>

Skin and Grace<\/em> is a photographic and documentary project developed over multiple journeys through Cuba with four professional male ballet dancers.<\/p>

Moving between Havana, ballet schools, domestic interiors, abandoned architecture, and natural landscapes, the project follows the dancers beyond the stage and outside the conventions of performance.<\/p>

Through photographs, interviews, and film, Mattio examines the relationship between the discipline inscribed in the dancers\u2019 bodies and the individual personalities that emerge when choreography falls away. The project considers masculinity, beauty, desire, identity, and the ways in which social expectations are carried physically.<\/p>

The dancers\u2019 training is always present: in posture, gesture, balance, and the extraordinary control of their bodies. Yet Skin and Grace<\/em> is concerned with the moments when that control loosens\u2014during travel, conversation, rest, uncertainty, and encounters with unfamiliar spaces.<\/p>

The project will be released as both a photobook and a 60-minute documentary film in Fall 2026.<\/p>

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ARTIST STATEMENT<\/strong><\/p>

I am not interested in photographing dancers as symbols of perfection. I am interested in the moment when perfection dissolves and something honest appears.<\/p>

In Cuba, I encountered a culture in which expectations of masculinity could be rigid and highly codified. Within that environment, these young men carry a form of grace that seems almost involuntary. Their training shapes how they move, stand, and inhabit space, yet something distinctly individual continually escapes that structure.<\/p>

Skin and Grace<\/em> grew from that tension: between discipline and instinct, expectation and personality, control and spontaneity.<\/p>

I wanted to photograph what happens when the dancers are no longer required to perform\u2014when the body is allowed simply to exist.<\/p>

The camera is there to witness those moments.<\/p>

\u2014 Igor Mattio<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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ABOUT THE BOOK<\/strong><\/h4>

Title:<\/strong> Skin and Grace<\/em>
Artist:<\/strong> Igor Mattio
Publisher:<\/strong> Artfineline
Format:<\/strong> Hardcover photobook
Release:<\/strong> Fall 2026
Content:<\/strong> Black-and-white and color photographs
Focus:<\/strong> Portraiture, body, masculinity, identity, environment, and gesture<\/p>

The book unfolds as a visual narrative developed through repeated encounters with the dancers across Cuba.<\/p>

Photographed in ballet schools, streets, domestic interiors, abandoned architecture, and natural landscapes, the dancers gradually move away from the formal language associated with ballet. Their bodies remain marked by years of training, but the photographs concentrate on quieter gestures and on the personalities behind that discipline.<\/p>

The sequencing moves between individual portraits, group photographs, movement, stillness, landscape, and fragments of everyday life. Images made during rehearsals and staged sessions appear alongside photographs created while traveling or simply spending time together.<\/p>

The book does not attempt to document ballet as an institution. It uses the dancers and their particular relationship with their bodies as a point of departure for a broader exploration of masculinity, beauty, identity, and self-presentation.<\/p>

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ABOUT THE FILM<\/h4>

Title:<\/strong> Skin and Grace<\/em>
Format:<\/strong> 60-minute documentary film
Release:<\/strong> Fall 2026
Produced by:<\/strong> Artfineline<\/p>

The documentary extends the photographic project into sound, movement, conversation, and time.<\/p>

At its center are four in-depth interviews with the dancers, accompanied by observational footage, staged visual sequences, travel, rehearsals, and behind-the-scenes moments from the making of the photographs.<\/p>

The film culminates in a conversation between the four dancers and Mattio. Together they reflect on the experience of being photographed and filmed, their relationship with their bodies, ballet, masculinity, desire, fear, identity, and the boundaries between collaboration and observation.<\/p>

The film combines:<\/p>