Napoli 31

When Julien Drach’s, Trees of Rome opened at Connolly in 2023, his black and white photographs of Rome’s famous pines, felt like a quiet, sensory conversation between an artist and a city. I am so happy to welcome him back three years later with The Long Road of Sand, a series in cinematic colour photographs of the Italian coast, that takes its title from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1959 journey along the Italian shoreline for the magazine Successo, driving a Fiat 1100. It was a chronicle of a coast being reshaped by the arrival of seaside tourism, and of Italy itself on the threshold of change.

Between 2016 and 2025, Julien retraced that route, from Naples to Viareggio, by way of the Amalfi Coast and Forte dei Marmi, making images on analogue film, medium format, polaroid and digital. The pictures are unhurried and sun-soaked, suspended somewhere between memory and observation: colours that recall postcards left too long in the sun, transitory silhouettes along the shore, where a certain idea of la Dolce Vita has somehow refused to leave the Italian coast alone. Through them, Julien extends Pasolini’s gaze into something both new and beautifully familiar.

There is a particular pleasure in showing this new work at Connolly. Julien himself describes the voyage as one that was born behind the wheel of an Italian sports car, and still emanates with the spirit of summers once spent between Capri and Portofino.

— Isabel Ettedgui

The Long Road of Sand is presented for the first time at Connolly, 4 Clifford Street, 3rd of June to the 30th September 2026.