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From May 14th to June 14th, 2024 at the Italian Cultural Institute in Amsterdam,
exhibition "Mondo piccolo" by Paolo Simonazzi
Italian Cultural Institute
Keizersgracht 564
1017 EM Amsterdam
Opening:
Tuesday, May 14th at 6:00 PM
Opening Hours:
Monday to Friday: 9:30 AM - 6:30 PM
The Italian Cultural Institute of Amsterdam, in close collaboration with the Embassy of Italy in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is hosting the exhibition "Mondo piccolo" by photographer Paolo Simonazzi, curated by Andrea Tinterri. The exhibition will be inaugurated on Tuesday, May 14th, 2024, and will be open for visits until Friday, June 14th.
The exhibition is based on the project started in 2006 by the Emilian photographer. It is a work that rediscovers the lands dear to the writer Giovannino Guareschi, places of the soul more than geographical locations. The photographs reconstruct an imaginary world that goes beyond - and emancipates itself from - the nostalgic view of a lost time. "Mondo Piccolo" is a tribute that revives and renews a narrative, a present that manifests itself in all its cultural, vivid, and direct extension.
The exhibition is a parallel comparison between landscapes and faces; the great river Po is perceived in its vastness, surrounded by fields, poplar groves, floating houses and, above all, people working, playing, living a recent or ancient belonging. The stories of men and women who have always inhabited those places, more recent stories of migrants, and stories of the provinces between Parma, Reggio Emilia and Mantova are depicted. The leading image of the exhibition is exemplary, capturing an old boat resting on the snow on the banks of the Po in Guastalla. The photograph is also a tribute to the painter with a vernacular style, Elena Guastalla (who passed away in 2020 and is a protagonist with a powerful portrait in Simonazzi's most recent project, "Il filo e il fiume"), author of the fairytale painting that covers the boat.
Guareschi's writing remains in the background, a ghostly presence on which to graft new iconographic narratives. Hints of Zavattini, Bertolucci the poet, but even more so the son, director of the film "Novecento," perhaps Ghirri in the ideal continuity of a photographic gaze, the first Nino Migliori and his neorealist digressions, can all be glimpsed. A complex culture emerges, suggesting a subtext useful for the reconstruction of a landscape and its history.
In his research, Paolo Simonazzi pursues and brings to the surface minimal narratives, liminal episodes where the province presents itself in its ironic intelligence. It doesn't matter if it's in the Po Valley or elsewhere because, quoting Gianni Celati, "Well, the province, to start with, is not a well-defined place but a category of the spirit. Going through provinces, in Europe as in Africa, is a passion in itself."
On the occasion of the exhibition's opening at the IIC premises, the documentary film "Mondo Piccolo" by director Alessandro Scillitani (50 minutes in Italian with English subtitles) will be presented. Produced during the year following the publication of the photographic book (Umberto Allemandi publisher, 2010), the film is an integral part of the project and deepens the knowledge of the people and places at the heart of Simonazzi's work.
Following the screening, a pleasant reception will be offered to all participants.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Keizersgracht 564, 1017 EM Amsterdam, Netherlands, Keizersgracht 564, 1017 EM Amsterdam, Nederland,Amsterdam, Netherlands
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