Mario Giacomelli: Poetry of Landscape
Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow / Moscow House of Photography
Moscow | RussiaThe Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, presents a personal exhibition by the leading Italian photographer Mario Giacomelli, ‘The Poetics of Landscape.’ MAMM first showed the works of Giacomelli within the framework of the Seventh Photo-Biennial International Month of Photography 2009 in Moscow.
Mario Giacomelli is one of the few Italian photographers to have received international recognition as early as the 1960s. His works can be found in the collections of the world’s largest museums, including the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
The series ‘Io non ho mani che mi accarezzino il viso’ (‘I have no hands that could caress my face’), which Giacomelli worked on over the course of a year at an ecclesiastical seminary, again shook the world of photography. The most famous shot in the series, which depicts young priests dancing in a courtyard, was done in secret from the seminary’s roof. Black, slightly blurred, moving figures on a contrasting white background — nothing is superfluous. With a minimum of resources, Giacomelli manages to snatch from the everyday and convey with an incredible precision a sense of lightness, joy and carefreeness. The shots very quickly spread across the world, and for a time were one of the most popular themes for the decoration of coffee cups.
‘Rather than being interested merely in documenting what is taking place, I’m more interested in looking within what is taking place,’ Giacomelli said. ‘I believe in abstraction, for me abstraction is a way to get closer to reality. The defocusing or blurring of the image, the grainy quality, the faded out white, the enclosed black — it’s as if it’s an explosion of a thought, allowing the image to exist for a long time, so that, in harmony with the material, with reality, the image is filled with a spiritual content and is able to reflect the internal world, the drama of life.’
The Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, presents a personal exhibition by the leading Italian photographer Mario Giacomelli, ‘The Poetics of Landscape.’ MAMM first showed the works of Giacomelli within the framework of the Seventh Photo-Biennial International Month of Photography 2009 in Moscow.
Mario Giacomelli is one of the few Italian photographers to have received international recognition as early as the 1960s. His works can be found in the collections of the world’s largest museums, including the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
The series ‘Io non ho mani che mi accarezzino il viso’ (‘I have no hands that could caress my face’), which Giacomelli worked on over the course of a year at an ecclesiastical seminary, again shook the world of photography. The most famous shot in the series, which depicts young priests dancing in a courtyard, was done in secret from the seminary’s roof. Black, slightly blurred, moving figures on a contrasting white background — nothing is superfluous. With a minimum of resources, Giacomelli manages to snatch from the everyday and convey with an incredible precision a sense of lightness, joy and carefreeness. The shots very quickly spread across the world, and for a time were one of the most popular themes for the decoration of coffee cups.
‘Rather than being interested merely in documenting what is taking place, I’m more interested in looking within what is taking place,’ Giacomelli said. ‘I believe in abstraction, for me abstraction is a way to get closer to reality. The defocusing or blurring of the image, the grainy quality, the faded out white, the enclosed black — it’s as if it’s an explosion of a thought, allowing the image to exist for a long time, so that, in harmony with the material, with reality, the image is filled with a spiritual content and is able to reflect the internal world, the drama of life.’
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