Opening of The Great Beauty - La Grande Bellezza: Five photographers and the city of Rome, curated by Marco Delogu.

THE GREAT BEAUTY (La Grande Bellezza)- Five photographers and the city of Rome, curated by Marco Delogu.

Every year takes place in Rome the International Photography Festival, which commissions to a different important photographer a project on the city. Among the many who have participated, we selected four Italian photographers: Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico, Marco Delogu and Paolo Ventura. To them we have added a New York photographer, Leo Rubinfien, who is currently on the assignment and will give us a sample of his work. Each photographer conveyed to the project his signature style and his identity, but we felt that these particular chosen works shared a common sensitivity toward the beauty of the capital of Italy.

Rome is a city of millenary charm, founded more than 2500 years ago on the banks of a river between seven hills, with the Campidoglio hill facing noon. To photograph Rome is very daunting. The risk of falling into the stereotype of the “postcard picturesque” on one side, and the difficulty of confronting works of incredible quality and infinite beauty, on the other, may have a “freezing effect”: what can you do more?

Olivo Barbieri chooses to fly (Rome 2004 is his first areal work) to have unsettling points of view and never the same, enhanced by the use of selective focus that makes everything look like a little miniature; Gabriele Basilico travels along the Tiber River, one of the main reasons for the birth of the city, photographing the water and the two shores, and focusing mostly on the Isola Tiberina; Marco Delogu chooses the night, without people, cars, voices, artificial lights, and awaits for the full moon to enlighten, as it did thousands of years ago, monuments ancient and recent; Paolo Ventura reconstructs in a study models of his vision of Rome, inventing the journey of a out-of-time zuavo that disappears in the city. Four visions by four different eyes to which the gaze of Leo Rubenfien connects. He began his “Rome Assignment” in 2016 as a prolonged project that originates from the Eternal City into an investigation on the many visions of globalization. Rubenfin gives us a preview of his work, with three photographs released for the first time.

The exhibition will be on view until April 13, 2017 - Monday through Friday, 10am to 5pm.