2nd of April at 6.30 PM
What happens to photography? Meeting with Gianni Leone, Enzo Velati, Christian Caliandro. Moderator : Berardo Celati
After the success obtained by the exhibition Gianni Leone. Inventory 1979 -2015 the Pino Pascali Foundation in Polignano a Mare continues to walk the path of analysis and study of important themes in today’s artistic and creative debate with a meeting held in occasion of the finissage with the title What happens to photography?
The event will take place on the 2nd of April at 6.30 PM. Gianni Leone, Enzo Velati ( Art Historian),Christian Caliandro ( historian and art critic) will be moderated by Berardo Celati, photographer. They will exchange views on the different paths undertaken by today’s photography. This form of art currently seems to be more and more valued but also in need of being properly archived and historicised, as well as being reconsidered in the light of new contemporary trends and techniques.
Through this exhibition and this event, the Pino Pascali Museum Foundation pays homage to Gianni Leone, an artist who has strongly contributed to the artistic renewal of the national cultural scene as well as the promotion of Apulian art and culture. The Foundation is not new to this kind of work, as it already worked on the exhibition Viaggio in Italia ( Travelling Through Italy), held in Bari in 1984, curated by Luigi Ghirri, Enzo Velati and Leone himself. How can the lesson learnt from Viaggio in Italia be applied to the contemporary situation? What can young photographers learn from it ? How can the path undertaken by those artists in the 1980s be translated into today’s world? Speakers will exchange views on this and other topics.
The Pino Pascali Foundation has also drawn inspiration from the opening ceremony to start an interesting exchange of views on these important artistic research studies. These are first important steps for the South of Italy, an area that has a very sound history of photography ,of which Gianni Leone is one of the leading , but which can still count on very few centres dedicated to the study and archiving of photographs.
Born in Bari in 1939, Leone was a professor of history and politics at the University of his hometown. The artist began his career as a photographer in 1979 during an intensively active cultural period: from 1981 to 1983 he manages the gallery Spazio Immagine where he exhibits his first research study, “Letture” (“Readings”), and until 1983 promotes the “Incontri di Spazio Immagine” (Meetings at Spazio Immagine), intensive cycles of conferences and readings accompanied by national and international monographic exhibitions. Among the many artists he engaged we find Luigi Ghirri, Mario Cresci, Giovanni Chiaramonte – who invited him to the collective exhibition “Luogo e identità della Fotografia contemporanea Europea” (Location and Identity of European Contemporary Photography) (1982) – and Guido Guidi. In 1984 he curates the important Viaggio in Italia (Travelling through Italy) as well as the volume published by Il Quadrante di Alessandria and an exhibition of more than 300 shots in Bari’s Provincial Gallery. He was supported in this endeavour by Luigi Ghirri and Enzo Velati, with texts by Quintavalle and a short story by Gianni Celati. The project completely overturns the popular view of Italy, thus offering an unprecedented insight into marginal or abandoned locations, provinces, solitary beaches, brothels, deserted corners.
The project completely overturns the popular view of Italy, thus offering an unprecedented insight into marginal or abandoned locations, provinces, solitary beaches, brothels, deserted corners.
Leone also engaged in collaborations and research studies such as Fasti barocchi (Baroque Splendour, on the baroque in Naples,1984), Giardini d’Europa (European Gardens, 1988), Ritorno al mare (Back to the Sea, 1994), Nuovo Paesaggio italiano (New Italian Landscape, 1998), Mediterranea, Verde e Vintage (Mediterranean, Green and Vintage, 2005, 2008), and more recent works such as Poi (Then, 2010) and Casa Ghirri (Ghirri’s home, 2011), intense reflections on spaces and loss. Leone continues to realise his Vaghi Paesaggi (Vague Landscapes), a view on wandering, beauty, indetermination which is splendid and constantly changing if seen from the outside, and in which we are reflected, with all our imperfections.
Info:
finissage: 2nd of April 2016 at 6.30 pm
Gianni Leone. Inventory 1979 – 2015 will be open until the 3rd of April 2016. In occasion of the finissage entrance to the exhibition is free of charge.
Opening times: from Tuesday to Sunday 11am-1 pm/5 pm-9 pm. Closed on Monday.
Guided tours available on request. Telephone number 080.424.9534 – +39 333.2091920
PINO PASCALI MUSEUM FOUNDATION
VIA PARCO DEL LAURO 119 – 70044 POLIGNANO A MARE (BA)
PH/fax: +39 080 4249534 – segreteria@museopinopascali.it
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