“Not all roads lead to Rome” - states the title of one of the about 150 exhibitions at FotoGrafia – but it is definitely worth it to find a way to hop over to the Italian capital on this occasion. With most of the shows taking place in museums and institutions all over Rome, FotoGrafia’s visitors are given the opportunity to combine the discovery of great photography with the pleasure of amazing archeological spots, monuments and works of art.
The main topic of Rome’s seventh FotoGrafia festival - under the artistic direction of Marco Delogu - is Questione Italiana, The Italian Issue. In fact, the aim is to take stock of Italian contemporary photography in all its forms, which doesn’t mean that only Italian photography is exhibited; through the Alcatel-Lucent Prize, World Press Photo, and Eyewitness the festival still keeps its international openness. Several of the most important exhibitions explore the representation of landscape over the past thirty years or so, and some others focus on the concept of the representation of memory.
At the Ara Pacis Museum, Ereditare il paesaggio displays work by well-known photographers Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico, Vincenzo Castella, Giovanni Chiaramonte, Guido Guidi, Mimmo Jodice and Massimo Vitali, along with projects by emerging photographers chosen by them. The exhibition shows a growing interest in urban landscape, in the interaction between heritage and evolution. Some key concepts from Italo Calvino are quoted in Guido Guidi’s exhibition, which apply to most of FotoGrafia’s landscape photography: when the archeologist finds objects whose use is unknown to him, he describes them bit by bit. Sometimes, he is able to understand what their function was, sometimes he isn't, and the fact that those objects were found exactly at a certain location is enough for him. Trinca Colonel's and Cosimo Pinchierri's Palmo a Palmo is a strong image on a 1:1 scale. “(…) intentions are not to represent the place, but to describe it.(…) The image is the collage of a series of zenithal shots taken centimeter after centimeter to obtain a single image from an infinite number of points of view.” Through an aerial close-up view, they show the way forward to new ways of seeing.
Non tutte le strade portano a Roma, held at the EX GIL, is a project that commissioned seven photographers with its central thread being the region of Lazio. Through some dramatic black and white photographs, Luca Campigotto focusses on the wild scenery of Ponza, Ventotene and Santo Stefano islands, where places of internment and prisons used to be. Xavier Ribas searches the signs of past civilizations; his photographs are tidy, restrained and rich depictions of parts of the Archeological Park in Vulci. In the Stazione Termini’s Terre di riforma, Franco Mapelli surveys part of the deserted territories where the 1950 agrarian reform took place, which allowed the inhabitants to take possession of the countryside.
Memory is approached from very different points of view. Real and fictitious remembrance brush against each other intriguingly. Paolo Ventura describes an imaginary, out of time, world. His characters come from somewhere in between folk and personal memory, they live in the sights and sounds of his imagination. His images, shots of scale models of a wartime universe, are highly poetical. Paolo Gioli’s Figure Luminescenti project is an unusual one. As he states, “These images of sculptures from the Roman Period were created using properly built 'plates' (cm 25x30) made up of luminous material used for road signs and airport runways. In the darkness of the camera optica the plate is charged with the light brought in by the figure of the sudden event. (…) The luminous positive will (…) revive with new images, in an endless regeneration.”
Altri mondi, held at the Museo di Roma in Trastevere, is a real inside view of Italian photojournalism with outstanding reportage by photographers Davide Monteleone, Paolo Pellegrin, Fabio Ponzio and Riccardo Venturi. Zones struck by war or in a state of crisis are displayed next to one of the most relevant exhibitions of FotoGrafia: il ‘77. In Tano D’Amico’s solo exhibit social, political and cultural turmoil are described: his striking, fresh photographs represent key events and everyday life of some of the hopeful, motivated youth of 1977. A life made of cohesion, creativity and of a real desire for social change expressed, sometimes, by violence. In addition to Tano D’Amico’s images, very interesting picture stories of other photographers contribute to a thorough panorama of different social, cultural and artistic questions of that time.
Last of all, through exhibitions chiefly focused on landscape and social change, the FotoGrafia festival shows a strong commitment in discreetly arousing a debate on today’s social conditions of life.
For more information go to www.fotografiafestival.it
Veronica De Benedetti
Reviewed by: Veronica De Benedetti
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