ALEXANDRIA – A hand kiss captured among the crowd walking in Moscow in 1969, the smile of a woman enjoying an ice cream on a warm summer evening in the alleys of Naples, the charge of a bull during the famous race along the streets of Pamplona and collective gymnastics sessions in China and Japan. In the 60 unpublished shots of the master Gianni Berengo Gardin in exhibition at the Sale d’Arte of Alessandria we travel the world between glimpses of Norway, France and shots of life in the stations of Milan and Bologna.
After the exhibition dedicated to Gabriele Basilico, the exhibition space of the City of Alessandria in via Machiavelli 13 recounts the work of another great Italian photographer. In 94 years of life behind the lens of his camera, still kept hanging from his arm to take pictures at any moment, Gianni Berengo Gardin has immortalized thousands of people and published in 263 books are the collections of those photographs.
For the master”It’s not how you photograph but what you photograph that matters.”. Gianni Berengo Gardin shoots “instinctively” and what matters in front of his lens are people’s true expressions and reactions, which the photographer recounts with a sincere gaze also in the photographs taken in 1994 on the occasion of the historical re-enactment of the Battle of Marengo at Villa Delavo.
“Things never seen before. Unpublished photographs” is the title of the book published by Contrasto which collects 114 images which, with five exceptions, had never been published previously and which were carefully selected from the artist’s immense repertoire by the master himself and his daughter Susanna and then shown for the first time last year at the Ma.Co.F in Brescia.
The “Things never seen” by Gianni Berengo Gardin at the Sale d’Arte of Alessandria allow us to closely observe 60 shots in which the curators of the exhibition, Giovanna Calvenzi and Susanna Berengo Gardinwanted to draw attention to the men and women that the photographer met during his work.
“I only made my best photos realize later that they were good, sometimes even years later“ explained Gianni Berengo Gardin. One more reason to see for yourself “Things never seen before” of the master on display at the Sale d’Arte. After the inauguration, this is scheduled June 6th at 5.30pmthe exhibition created by the special multi-service company Costruire Insieme and the City of Alessandria, with the collaboration of Alexala, the local tourist agency for the Province of Alessandria, can be visited until September 15th from Thursday to Sunday from 3pm to 7pm. The exhibition makes use of the contribution of Cassa di Risparmio di Alessandria Foundation as part of the project “Alessandria and the great masters of photography.
