The photographic exhibition ‘All the days of life (photographs 1959-1992)’, curated by Arianna Catania, will be inaugurated on 18 May
As part of the 12th edition of the cultural event “Un Castello all’Orizzonte” which takes place in Castello di Postignano (PG), on Saturday 18 May 2024, at 6.30 pm at the Assisi Apartment, the vernissage of the photography exhibition “Peggy Kleiber. Every day of life (photographs 1959-1992)” edited by Arianna Catania.
The exhibition, which can be visited until 3 November (free entry), was exhibited as a world premiere at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere last year (it opened on 18 May 2023): Castello di Postignano hosts the second Italian stage with some unpublished photos taken in Umbria and Tuscany.
The exhibition itinerary “Peggy Kleiber. All the days of life (photographs 1959-1992)” intends to enhance a rich and detailed archive, hitherto unknown to the general public, which includes more than 15,000 photographs and preserves the gaze of a woman, witness of her time.
A great iconographic heritage, enclosed for many years in two simple suitcases, finally sees the light today, through a great work of digitization and patient thematic reorganization.
Peggy Kleiber had set up a small darkroom and her own developing and printing laboratory in her home. Together with the negatives, the archive holds numerous original reproductions and vintage prints, both of family photos (taken in Switzerland and elsewhere) and of numerous trips to Italy and abroad. Often the films, almost all in black and white, were “stretched to the end”, so much so that some images come to us as torn fragments of a rediscovered time.
Alongside the photographic material and thanks to the fundamental contribution of Peggy Kleiber’s relatives, letters, notes, diaries and albums were also found, as well as Super 8 and 16mm films with rare family films. Films often shot by Peggy’s father, who passed on his passion for photography to his daughter from an early age.
Peggy Kleiber moves invisibly in a world that belongs to her, made up of people and situations known to her, thus becoming the trait d’union of her family and managing, with her profound gaze, to connect empathically with every member of it. For years she has documented, with her inseparable Leica, collective rites: weddings, parties, births, anniversaries and moments of life together. She thus manages to capture deep emotions among the subtle gestures, in the knowing glances, in the seemingly ordinary everyday life, in which all the richness and complexity of family ties is described.
Biography
Peggy Kleiber (Moutier, Switzerland, 1940) spent her childhood with her large family, immersed in a context rich in cultural stimuli, including music and literature. In 1959 you began studying literature in Geneva and then at the University of Zurich. In 1961 she went to live in Hamburg to attend the “Hamburger Fotoschule” photography school. This experience marks a turning point in Peggy Kleiber’s life: from that moment her Leica M3 will follow her everywhere, in family rituals and anniversaries, as well as in trips abroad.
In the following years, reading Simone Weil will be decisive: the thought of the French philosopher will become fundamental when Peggy goes to work for a period in a textile factory in Roggwil (Bern).
Since 1958 Peggy Kleiber has been traveling throughout Europe (Paris, Prague, Amsterdam, Leningrad, etc), dedicating great attention to Italy, discovering different social strata, allowing herself to be enchanted by unknown places. She discovers Rome, a city with which she immediately forms a strong bond, which will push her to return several times.
He also moves to discover hidden Italy: Umbria and Tuscany and Sicily, a beloved land where he forms bonds that will last for the years to follow.
In these years of great discoveries and changes, Peggy Kleiber will not lose contact with her family, which continues to expand. She does this both by visiting brothers and sisters in other parts of Europe, and by returning to Switzerland to reunite for important collective moments: parties, weddings, births, rites of passage.
In 1965 Peggy Kleiber resumed her studies at the University of Neuchâtel and from the end of the 1970s onwards she dedicated herself to teaching, without ever abandoning photography.
Only many years later did she decide to gather and edit the numerous family photos, contained in the book Rue Neuve 44. Chronicle of family life 1963-1983, which she personally edited and donated to her relatives in 2006.
Peggy Kleiber passed away prematurely in 2015, at the age of 75.
