The Italian Cultural Institute of Paris proudly presents a selection of clichés by one of the major figures of Italian contemporary photography, Gianni Berengo Gardin. Inexhaustible witness of the second half of the 1950s, Gianni Berengo Gardin has visited every corner of Italy, collecting stories and images from both tiny and big changes. The exhibition Fêtes is meant as a photographic journey through festivals and fairs of the Italian popular tradition.
The sixty black-and-white pictures selected within Gianni Berengo Gardin’s huge archives and dated 1957-2009 form a surprising photographic atlas that witnesses the diversity of Italian popular celebrations, costumes and regional traditions. Thanks to his camera, Berengo Gardin reveals a swarming world of kids, gypsies, dancers of all ages, women dressed up for celebration, on which he brings both an ethnographic and empathic eye.
Using Ernesto De Martino’s “double gaze” approach, Berengo Gardin achieves a trip to “the other” and back, thus bringing out the story of a feasting Italy in which everyone celebrates their history and culture through old and new rituals, while these striking clichés reveal all the humanism and sensitivity of a master of photography.
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Institut culturel italien
Located in the Hôtel de Galliffet, the Italian Cultural Institute of Paris is an office of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation dedicated to the promotion of Italian language and culture. Italian Cultural Institute conforms to its commitment by offering Italian language and culture courses as well as a variety of cultural events that focus on Italy’s cultural, artistic and scientific life