Tableaux is a series of 12 images that intend to reflect about how the art reproduction (photography) was and continues to be one of the most used media for the circulation of works of art to a great extent of the world. These panels are adapted this way to see the images. How can the artist work with the same problematic as the art historians, moving away from the academic correction which dominates the art world? On what can we focus when we think about the artists of the past? Mainly it interests me to ask on two categories that the history of art does not leave for an instance: “the novelty” and “the importance”.
From Janet Batet´s review on Art Nexus #78 Sep - Nov 2010
"Amalia Caputo’s Tableaux also delves into the notion of the icon. She draws from masterpieces in art history ¿Paintings, to be more precise, that she has chosen to revisit through photography. While photography has historically been associated with these works simply as a way to make such works known, here the artist proposes a different purpose for the medium. Caputo utilizes it as a critical device not solely limited to faithful reproduction of the original, but one that also offers its own version of the work, in addition to new readings of the theme. In this respect, the Tableaux series (2008-2010) participates in the central problematic as pronounced by Flusser surrounding the birth of the technical image and the radical transformational effect it exerted in the history of Western culture. While traditional images i.e. "painting"corresponded to each other through a phenomenological interpretation, in the case of the technical image, we attend to a conceptual reinterpretation. We find ourselves before unprejudiced, post-historical meaning. From Fontainebleau to Michelangelo, from Magritte to Goya, Amalia Caputo reinterprets clichés from the history of art. She recreates the original atmosphere of the work; the poses; the simplest gestures; the folds of the fabrics, even the subtle use of light that imposes a sort of sfumato. Nevertheless, Caputo does not attempt to hide the artifice. Behind the bodies, the flat background of the green screen makes us aware of the critical commentary in which we are participating, that where the quote implies an affective dialogue throughout history."