All images: Davide Sorrenti, courtesy of IDEA.
This is where the late photographer collected ideas, drawings, writing, tear and contact sheets, test prints, flyers – here, Sorrenti’s mother elaborates on the new IDEA publication
Born in Naples in 1976 and raised in New York among a family of photographers, Davide Sorrenti was already creating a distinct yet controversial visual language in his teens. His life and work was the subject of the documentary film See Know Evil and the rise of ‘heroin chic’ in fashion photography of the mid-90s – though he never distinctly described himself as a fashion photographer. He compiled sketchbooks and journals full of observational and ‘reportage’, personal work which connected him to his subjects. Now, IDEA has published Davide Sorrenti Journals: Volume 1 1994-1995, edited by Francesca Sorrenti, Davide’s mother, who has edited previous editions of his work – ArgueSKE 1994–1997, POLAROIDS, My Beutyfull Lyfe.
The journals collected in this volume are the first tangible record of that creative awakening: notebooks brimming with drawings, scribbled ideas, contact sheets and Polaroids that reveal how he saw the world around him. They predate the wider recognition and controversy that would accompany his work in fashion magazines such as Interview, Detour and i-D.
Sorrenti was born with thalassemia, a serious blood disorder that demanded frequent treatment and shaped Davide Sorrenti’s sense of mortality. His untimely death in February 1997, at just twenty years old, became entangled in the very mythologies and anxieties his images had helped provoke: sensationalist reports linked it to drug use, overshadowing the deeper reality of his long-standing illness and obscuring the compassion in his work.
Volume 1 returns to the very origin of his vision. It invites readers to set aside reductive labels and encounter Sorrenti on his own terms. Below, we speak to Sorrenti’s mother, Francessca, about the new book.
“You watch an 18-year-old navigating bigger emotions, bigger spaces, intimate relationships”
Dalia Al-Dujaili: Why was this the right moment to publish Davide’s journals?
Francesca Sorrenti: Now felt like the right time because I could finally approach these journals with a different state of mind, the material was simply too intimate, now I can see it as an essential part of his legacy, and this generation is ready to see him without the noise around his story. We are living in a moment when people crave the real thing, and emotional depth, especially in contrast to the digital world. Davide’s handwriting, his collages, the way he documented his friends and the city – all of it resonates more powerfully now. The journals speak directly to today’s thirst for knowledge, for something real.
DA: You’ve established a publishing relationship with IDEA. What makes IDEA the right publisher to work with Davide’s imagery and journals?
FS: IDEA is the right publisher because they understand the human element of youth culture, photography, and fashion in a way few others do. They immediately recognised Davide’s voice and the energy of his generation, and they treated his work with the respect and precision it deserves, not as nostalgia, but as living culture.
DA: How does your personal relationship with your late son help to shape the pages we see?
FS: My relationship with Davide shaped the edit simply because I knew him as a teenager, not as the cultural figure he later became after his passing. I could separate the noise from what was really his voice. When creating the book, I focused on keeping the pages exactly as he created them, honest, fast, unfiltered, without imposing my own interpretation. My role was to protect the integrity of what he wrote and saw, not to rewrite it.
DA: What can we expect from the proceeding Volumes?
FS: The next volume and the last of his journals continue the same approach. Davide’s pages are shown exactly as he made them. As Journal 2 progresses, you see him change. His understanding of photography becomes more technical and deliberate, and he starts stepping deeper into the gritty side of downtown New York and the ’90s fashion world. His circle widens skaters, models, musicians, young artists, other photographers and an important girlfriend enters the picture, adding another layer to his personal world. You watch an 18-year-old navigating bigger emotions, bigger spaces, intimate relationships, and a growing creative ambition. Together, the volumes show how quickly he was evolving and how naturally he was finding his place in that moment. Journal Two is the evolution of Davide Sorrenti.
