Paolo Ventura: The Juggler

Paolo Ventura’s Short Stories are whimsical narratives told through pictures—tales of love, war, and family—where things magically appear or disappear, set in an imaginary past of World War II Italy. Much like in silent films, the drama unfolds with no words 
or captions. For these works and those to be featured in the publication, Ventura constructs life-sized sets, in which he situates himself and members of his family (casting his son, wife, and twin brother as actors) in stories that are at once charming and disquieting. While seemingly simple, Ventura’s vignettes come with larger implications: brothers who encounter each other by surprise on the battlefield, jugglers who appear from above, a man who packs himself into his suitcase, a small-town magician who accidently makes his son disappear for real, and many others. Here, Ventura has built a world of realistic proportions and actors, in fantastical tales and against painted backdrops—challenging notions of what is real and what is make-believe.

Featured here is a special print edition of The Juggler. This story is featured in the Ventura’s Aperture publication Short Stories (2016), which collects his entire Short Stories series together for the first time, including three previously unpublished, and offers a glimpse into the artist’s extraordinary imagination.

Each limited-edition print is hand-packed with great care and ships from New York within 3–5 days.