Previewed last November 3rd by the exhibition curated by Domenico Quaranta All these fleeting perfectionsthe festival Exposedfinally opens its doors to the public transforming the city of Turin into the Italian capital of photography. Accompanied by the subtitle New Landscapes – New landscapes, the event makes use of numerous spaces and museums in the Piedmontese capital to offer multiple perspectives on this ever-evolving medium. Directed by Menno Liauw and Salvatore Vitale, and promoted among others by the City of Turin and the CRT Foundation, the event consists of 28 temporary exhibitions set up in 23 different locations.
EXPOSED Turin Photo Festival. The first stop at OGR
Involving numerous cultural centers, even particularly distant from each other (from CAMERA – Italian Center for Photography to the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, passing through the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, the Ex Galoppatoio della Cavallerizza Reale – Paratissima and the MAO Museo d ‘Oriental Art, just to name a few) the event thus gives shape to a real project of widespread culture aimed at anyone. Kicking off this new Turin event is the headquarters of the Large repair workshops – where the fifth edition of The Phair is also held from 3 to 5 May, again dedicated to photography – which, until 2 June 2024 (closing date of the festival), hosts three free exhibitions dedicated to the photographic medium from a decidedly contemporary, capable of constructing narratives that are as poetic and evocative as they are current and enigmatic. “We want to focus on an innovative and inclusive approach to attract a diverse audience, both local and international – says the director Menno Liauw – through a diversified program that includes different approaches to photography: from classical to contemporary, cross-media, installation and performative. Collaboration and community are key aspects and underline the multidisciplinary and kaleidoscopic nature of EXPOSED”.
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EXPOSED Turin Photo Festival. The exhibition “A view from above” at OGR
The first of the three exhibitions hosted at the OGR is A view from abovean exhibition curated by Domenico Quaranta, Salvatore Vitale and Samuele Piazza which focuses its attention on the aerial perspective or rather, as Hito Steyerl would call it, on the “vertical perspective”. Once understood as a metaphor for freedom and exploration, the view from above today takes on connotations much closer to the concepts of threat and control. In fact, the large shaped shadow of a drone installed in the external courtyard of the building welcomes the public: an intervention by the British artist and theorist James Bridle, which silently looms over visitors. As Quaranta himself explains: “The aerial point of view is in a certain way inherent to photography and at the same time we can also say that it allows anyone who adopts it to acquire a position, a point of view which is by its nature the point of view of control and candies. Before there were aerial devices that brought the photographic gaze upwards there was the general who climbed the hill and observed the battlefield”. Among the digital manipulations of photographs taken here in Turin (from bottom to top) by Evan Roththe terrestrial landscapes immortalized by Mario Giacomelli and the lunar ones represented by Tabitha Reazaire, the exhibition unfolds in the space of Track 2 to offer new perspectives from which to look at things, in all senses and in all directions. Among the other artists present we remember Laura Cinti, Mishka Hener, Susan Schuppli, Hiwa K And Tomas Van Houtryve.
EXPOSED Turin Photo Festival. The other two exhibitions at OGR
To close this initial tour of Exposed they are the two projects set up respectively at Track 1 and Track 3, i.e. the collective Expanded Withoutand the Alien solo exhibition curated by SPRINT, Bodybuilders. If the first makes use of the collaboration with the CRT Foundation for Modern and Contemporary Art to broaden the visitor’s imagination through the works of artists such as Nanda Vigo, Gustav Metzger, Remo Salvadori and Teresita Fernándes, the second delves deeper through videos and captivating photos a discussion specifically linked to the concept of identity.
Valerio Veneruso
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