Mario Giacomelli The photographer and the artist

Curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi e Katiuscia Biondi Giacomelli

Exhibition promoted by Rome the Capital City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and by Azienda Speciale Palaexpo

Produced and organised by Azienda Speciale Palaexpo in conjunction with the Archivio Giacomelli

“Photography is an alchemy: its materials and processes are symbolic and the artist brings himself, his own existential journey, into play”.

To mark Mario Giacomelli’s first centenary, the Archivio Giacomelli has promoted a series of events designed to celebrate the artistic and cultural legacy of one of Italian photography’s greatest masters. The high point in the celebrations is a major exhibition that is due to be held simultaneously at the Palazzo Esposizioni in Rome and the Palazzo Reale in Milan, offering visitors two complementary experiences exploring the many different aspects of Giacomelli’s multi-faceted work.

Curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi and Katiuscia Biondi Giacomelli, the exhibition will be showcasing a vast selection from the master’s photographic output as a whole, highlighting his astonishing ability to cross over and to cross-contaminate different artistic disciplines. Each exhibition will consist of roughly 300 original prints, many of which are unpublished and have never been shown in public before now. In Rome, the focus will be on the relationship between Giacomelli’s work and the contemporary visual arts, while the exhibition in Milan will be exploring Giacomelli’s deep bond with poetry, revealing how his research was interwoven with the lyrical world, succeeding in transforming images into a kind of poetic narrative.