This exhibition, curated by Angela Madesani, shows works by three leading Italian photographers: Gabriele Basilico, Vincenzo Castella, and Massimo Vitali. It gives us the possibility of rethinking an important period in Italian photography and the theories relating to it. The show’s aim is to spark off a debate about new interpretations of the work and its wider perspectives. It is an inquiry into a hypothetical Italian school of photography through the works of three artists.
The works include part of a series of photographs by Gabriele Basilico whcih range from Bord de Mer to shots of cities from Istanbul (I say Istanbul but I could just as easily mention some other city) to Milan. On show will be images made for the French Mission Photographique de la DATAR, a programme Basilico contributed to in the 1980s, the only Italian to be invited. The works on show perfectly capture the essence of this great photographer, one who had trained as an architect.
Vincenzo Castella is exhibiting some images from Siti, a wide-ranging, full-colour project which he began at the end of the 1990s and is still going ahead with today. This Neapolitan artist does not exploit the photographer’s privileged stance but, rather, invents possible photographs from a relatively democratic point of view whose unit of measure is the building itself. There is no narrative in his images: on the contrary, his idea is to eliminate narrative from an event and its surroundings and leave them saturated in their complexity of time and space.
Massimo Vitali is attracted by large collective spaces: beaches, discos, and parks where people come together. So Vitali becomes an observer of ways of behaving which are repeated in highly different situations. His images capture social dynamics where people, quite anonymously, leave their usual codes of behaviour behind them in order to allow their body to regain its freedom. On show are some images devoted to Italian beaches.
