Paolo
Roversi: Incontri
Fondazione Sozzani, Milan
Fondazione Sozzani, Milan
Through
February 11, 2018
As
a complement to the large exhibition at the Palazzo Reale in Milan,
PAOLO ROVERSI’s
exhibition “Incontri”
at the Fondazione Sozzani highlights the strictly painterly structure
of his photographs.
Beyond
any specific model or subject, Paolo Roversi’s artistry lives in
composition and geometry. He possesses an abstract approach to
reality. Since the early 80s, his photographs have met the demands of
a constant formal rigor which lends them an astonishingly timeless
character, in contradiction to the tastes and customs of fashion. His
familiarity with the history of art, and with Italian painting in
particular, allows him to make photographs in the manner of a
painter. He often works in series on a single theme or model, as if
he sought to capture every last one of its formal possibilities.
For
the present exhibition, Paolo Roversi has brought his photographs
together in twos and threes: diptychs and triptychs. This technique,
never systematically employed by him until now, affords the
viewer an unprecedented vision of these works, as it gives them a
monumental dimension. Composing a painting in several parts confers
greater importance upon a subject through a proliferation of
readings, as in Renaissance painting, which made extensive use of
this technique. In this exhibition, Paolo Roversi’s photography
appears more serene, more mastered, than ever before.
Among
the thirty diptychs and triptychs created especially for this
exhibition – on the basis of photographs which are among his most
important works – this selection also exhibits, for the first time,
a set of mutual portraits made in 2001 in Nova Scotia with the great
American photographer Robert Frank.
PAOLO
ROVERSI
Paolo
Roversi
(Ravenna, 1947) began working as a photojournalist for The Associated
Press in the 1970s. In November 1973, at the suggestion of Peter
Knapp, creative director of the magazine Elle,
he moved to Paris where he worked as a photojournalist for the
Huppert Agency.
In
1974, he became assistant to British photographer Laurence Sackman.
After leaving Sackman's studio, Roversi began taking pictures for
Elle
and Dépêche Mode. His first major photographic commission was
published in Marie
Claire,
and in 1980 when he signed the Christian Dior campaign.
In
1980, Paolo Roversi started using Polaroid 20x24cm film and
collaborating with leading fashion magazines around the world: Elle,
Marie
Claire,
Harper's
Bazaar
and Vogue.
In those years he starts shooting the fashion campaigns for some of
the most important fashion names: Yohji Yamamoto, Azzedine Alaïa,
Comme des Garçons, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Hermès,
Giorgio Armani and Valentino.
In
1996, he won the Trophée de la Mode Paris and in 2001 and he was
awarded the China Fashion Award. In 2000, he exhibited in Milan at
Galleria Carla Sozzani; in 2002, in
New York at the Pace/MacGill Gallery; in 2006, in Japan at Yokohama
Red Brick Warehouse Number 1; in 2008, at the Rencontres
Internationales de la Photographie d'Arles; and in 2009, at the
Camera Work Galerie in Berlin; in 2017 in Milan at Palazzo Reale and
at Fondazione Sozzani.
Paolo
Roversi published several monographic books including two books
focused on portraits: “Angeli”
in 1994 and “Al Moukalla” in 1995 for Camera Oscura and many
monographies such as
"Una Donna", Carla Sozzani Editore, 1989; "Nudi",
Editions Stromboli, 1999; "Libretto", Editions Stromboli,
2000; "Studio", Steidlangin, 2005; "Secrets",
Editions Stromboli, 2013; “Dior Images”, Rizzoli International,
2018.
Curated
by Alessia Glaviano
Fondazione
Sozzani
Galleria
Carla Sozzani
Corso
Como 10 – 20154 Milano, Italia
