Photographer, publisher, environmentalist, political activist and civil rights activist, Letizia Battaglia was born in Palermo on 5 March 1935. In over fifty years of career she left an indelible mark not only in the history of photography, but also in the Italian collective memory : she was responsible for the most intense images of the dramatic mafia wars in Sicily in the seventies, but also for the story of childhood in the South and of religious life in the provinces. Since her death in 2022, the Letizia Battaglia Archive Association – founded the previous year by her grandchildren Matteo and Marta Sollima – has passionately dedicated itself to keeping her memory alive, digitizing her photographic heritage and setting up exhibitions throughout Italy . After the success of the latest exhibitions at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa and at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Battaglia’s shots arrive in Salerno with Letizia Battaglia – Una vita. Like a punch, like a caress, the first widespread exhibition ever dedicated to the photojournalist. THE DIFFUSE EXHIBITION OF LETIZIA BATTAGLIA IN SALERNOOrganised by the Tempi Moderni association, the exhibition project – curated by Paolo Falcone and open to visitors until 19 May – sees its epicenter in the halls of Palazzo Fruscione and in the Church of San Sebastiano del Monte dei Morti: here we find a central corpus of over one hundred photographs, enriched by videos, documentaries, magazines and books. In the rest of the city, the retrospective expands to the venues of the Court of Palazzo Pinto, in the Chapel of San Ludovico, in the Chapel of Sant’Anna in San Pietro a Corte and in the Hypogeum of San Pietro a Corte, dialoguing with the architecture and the cultural history of the territory. SICILY (AND NOT ONLY) IN THE SHOTS OF LETIZIA BATTAGLIA “With this exhibition”, explains Paolo Falcone, “we continue to maintain the tradition of breaking the mould, of erasing the themes, ignoring chronologies to build a ‘unique and polyphonic work which, on this occasion, involves several places in the historic center of Salerno, where photography and daily life come together in a single poetic, poignant and dramatic journey, which highlights the extraordinary visual sensitivity of the Palermo photographer”. Furthermore, continues the curator, the selection that we find on display “also opens up to a universe of photographs taken not only in her homeland but also outside Sicily, to allow the viewer to understand in a deeper way the work and thought of the Battle in his intact career.”[Immagine in apertura: La rosa. Palermo, 1995 © Archivio Letizia Battaglia]
