To spread knowledge about places in Italy that have been listed among "UNESCO World Heritage Sites", the Embassy of Italy in New Delhi in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Centre is organising a three-week-long exhibition of contemporary photography at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts here beginning January 27.
Titled "UNIT: Unescoitalia 41 World Heritage Sites in Italy", the exhibition will showcase the works of 14 photographers. The initiative under the aegis of the Italian Culture Ministry is aimed at identifying and protecting the Italian cultural and natural patrimony for future generations.
The UNESCO World Heritage List office of the Ministry of Culture has invited 14 of Italy’s best contemporary photographers who over the years have been capturing monuments and landscapes with their artistic skill to bring out their myriad identities. The idea is not only to offer a view of the artistic, architectural, landscape and archaeological wonders but also to present an anthology of the main trends of contemporary Italian photography.
The exhibition follows a chronological track, starting the journey with the pictures of Gianni Berengo Gardin to current photographs. Sites from central and southern Italy such as Assisi, Urbino, Val d’Orcia, San Gimignano and Castel del Monte are represented by Berengo’s frames.
Described as austere and elegant by critics, his photographs still preserve that lightness of the eye that characterises the immediacy of a shoot.
The cultural landscape of Cinque Terre has been shown in black and white by an almost expressionist Ferdinando Scianna. It appears projected in a world in which nature reigns supreme and man lives in balance with the rest of creation.
On the other hand, the images of Gabriele Basilico showcase the search for a new world image.
Yet another doyen of black-and-white pictures, Giuseppe Leone has dedicated his work to his land Sicily, creating a rich and fantasy-filled vision of it.
There are two women, totally different from each other and distant in representing that meagre number of women who dedicate themselves to photography. Giuseppina Caltagirone and Raffaela Mariniello are sensitive interpreters of the changes in the suburban landscape.
