In the poetry of everyday life, they capture social and societal interrelationships, expose and reflect on the imperial past of their homeland, and critically question the medium of photography: sometimes traditional, sometimes conceptual, always touching and far removed from the clichés of “Dolce Vita” and “Bella Italia.”
Italian photography of this period developed in the context of Arte Povera and Neorealism on the one hand, and on the other hand shows influences from American New Color Photography and German photography as taught by Otto Steinert at the Folkwangschule in Essen and Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie. The series on display also include vintage prints and rarely seen original prints from the early 1980s, including works by Guido Guidi (born 1941), Gabriele Basilico (1944–2013), Luigi Ghirri (1943–1992), and Marina Ballo Charmet (born 1952).
The spectrum of works on display includes numerous portraits, conceptual and serial works, socially, politically, and societally situated photographs, and landscape photographs, which occupy a special place in Italian art. In particular, the so-called “photography of the places,” which established itself in Italy in the early 1980s, focuses on a collective identity with the help of which the authors confidently formulated their claim to artistic autonomy. In the early 1990s, economic development and the first effects of globalization led photographers such as Marina Ballo Charmet, Paola De Pietri, William Guerrieri, and Paola Di Bello to take an interest in urban spaces, the loss of identity of places, and social issues.
At the beginning of the new millennium, various crises provided fertile ground for new photographic approaches and artistic strategies. Social injustices in the country, demands for gender equality, and issues of migration created a new cultural framework and gave rise to a young generation of photographers: Marcello Galvani, Francesco Neri, Luca Nostri, Allegra Martin, and Cesare Fabbri—all students and companions of Guido Guidi. They saw themselves as representatives of a long artistic tradition and turned their attention to urban spaces in the provinces.
Another group of photographers developed a new narrative method that formally tied in with the reportage photography of the 1970s. The socially critical works of Michela Palermo, Nicola Lo Calzo, Giulia Iacolutti, Davide Degano, Michele Borzoni, and Simone Donati reveal artistic affinities with representatives of the Folkwangschule such as Joachim Brohm, Wendelin Bottländer, and Petra Wittmar. Andrea Botto, Maurizio Montagna, and Alessandro Ruzzier draw on real or constructed moments from which they developed their works—following the examples of postmodernism and the “objective photography” of the Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie by Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Candida Höfer, and Axel Hütte.
In young Italian photography, it is clear that photographers such as Francesca Iovene, Carmen Colombo, Matteo Di Giovanni, Tomaso Clavarino, Giulia Agostini, Federico Clavarino, and Iacopo Pasqui no longer focus their visual investigations on public space as a place of collective identity, but instead promote a freer approach to narrative structures around the themes of individuality, community, and diversity. In their often biographical series, they neglect the narrative sequence of images in favor of a juxtaposition of individual figurative elements charged with the symbolic values of their generation. In doing so, they critically examine the concept of home and their own origins.
Artists: Giulia Agostini, Marina Ballo Charmet, Olivo Barbieri, Fabio Barile, Gabriele Basilico, Michele Borzoni, Andrea Botto, Michele Buda, Michele Cera, Federico Clavarino, Tomaso Clavarino, Carmen Colombo, Mario Cresci, Paola De Pietri, Davide Degano, Paola Di Bello, Matteo Di Giovanni, Simone Donati, Alessandra Dragoni, Cesare Fabbri, Marcello Galvani, Luigi Ghirri, William Guerrieri, Guido Guidi, Giulia Iacolutti, Francesca Iovene, Armin Linke, Nicola Lo Calzo, Sara Lorusso, Rachele Maistrello, Allegra Martin, Marco Marzocchi, Sofia Masini, Maurizio Montagna, Francesco Neri, Walter Niedermayr, Luca Nostri, Michela Palermo, Sara Palmieri, Iacopo Pasqui, Piero Percoco und Alessandro Ruzzier.
Address and contact:
SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen
Eschenbrünnlestraße 15, 71065 Sindelfingen
www.schauwerk-sindelfingen.de
The exhibition NO PLACE LIKE HOME is curated by Ralph Goertz, director of IKS Photo Düsseldorf, and is newly and individually compiled in collaboration with the partner institutions.
The richly illustrated catalog accompanying the exhibition was published by Walther und Franz König, with a joint foreword by León Krempel, Svenja Frank, Corinna Otto, and Ralph Goertz, and texts by Nicoletta Leonardi and Ralph Goertz.
