Visages de Naples: 5 photo exhibits in Paris
19 May 2009 1 Comment
in exhibits Tags: 1950s, Garolla, IIC, Naples, Neapolitan, Paris, photography, streetlife
The Italian Cultural Institute in Paris, which, under the direction of Rosanna Rummo, has got to be the most active and exciting Italian cultural center in the world, has inaugurated a series of photographic exhibits focusing on the fascinating and thoroughly frustrating city of Naples.
The first in this series, 40 photographs by Federico Garolla, entitled “Naples années 50″ is currently showing at
the IIC’s exhibition space at it’s home, 73 rue de Grenelle in the historic Hôtel de Galliffet. This exhibit is about people, in the streets, at schools and in the marketplace, and always in public, because, after all, this is Naples. It includes many photographs of children, as most of the prints come from his study, “Enfance Abandonée.” The children are wonderfully expressive of the energetic attempts that were made in that city to move forward in the postwar years. There are photos of children unsupervised, carousing, playing, contemplating and swaggering in the public places of the city. But there are even more photos of children being subjected to an enforced comformity of institutional life: children washing at communal sinks, standing at attention in a descending stairwell, grimacing in a communal mirror. the contrast between the damning liberty of streetlife, and on the other hand, the deadening uniformity of state programs. To me, this is the underlying theme of the exhibit, this juxtaposition. It so ably articulates the inability of postwar Italy to channel the great partenopea energy in a creative way and it gives us some understanding of why the great city has not managed to keep up with the rest of Europe in these decades. It’s hard to know what might have worked better, and this is perhaps the tragedy of Naples that comes through in this wonderfully evocative images.
What makes it worse, is that the doomed exuberance of Neapolitan life is exactly what draws us to the city’s culture. People love to see these Neapolitans, with their anachronistic Mediterranean ways, ways that will get them exactly nowhere in the Twenty-first Century. And the Neapolitans are happy to accept the deadly embrace. Ariane Bavelier in Le Figaro, says, “Les 40 clichés de Garolla mettent en relief cette alchimie de dévotion, d’espièglerie et d’incongru qui définit l’inégalable chanson des rues napolitaines. Un régal !” (Garolla’s 40 images put on display the devotion, the roguishness and the incongruity that together make up the unique music of Neapolitan streets. A treat!) Yes, it is a treat for the viewer, but perhaps a bit less for the city on the bay. In any case, Garolla’s photos magnificently present this paradox and makes these arguments come to life.
This first exhibit runs until May 29, 2009. The catalog for this and each exhibit will be published by Silvana editoriale (click the image for info.)
It will be followed by:
Norma Rossetti: Naples, péripherie nord, (vernissage or opening, June 10, running until July 10, 2009). Like many European cities, Naples has its disastrous “banlieues”, those crumbling townships on the outskirts of town with their apartment blocks full of society’s underclass. The subject here is the banlieue named Scampia, which has become familiar as the locale for the book and film Gomorra.
Antonio Biasucci / Oreste Zevola: Figures rituelles. (vernissage September 16, running until October 23, 2009). This will have ex votos as its subject, those traditional metal objects which are used to embody the hopes and thanks of believers for help gained through saintly intervention.
Alain Volut: Ombres. (vernissage November 12, running until January 15, 2010). The vision of a French photographer who has lived in Naples for 25 years. He is inspired by the looming presence of Vesuvius in the history of the area.
Mimmo Jodice: Naples intime, (Spring of 2010). The great Neapolitan photographer will present a show as a complement to his retrospective at la Maison Européen de la Photographie.
