In part of the AIPAD Photography Show 2015, the Grimaldi Gavin gallery selected for us three photographs , “Cala Mariolu, Big Rock, 2014” by Italian photographer, Massimo Vitali, “Nympheas #33” by Goldschmied & Chiari, and “The Actress” by Miles Aldridge.
1. Massimo Vitali
Cala Marlolu Coda Big Rock, 2014
© Massimo Vitali
C-print, 72 x 95 inches
Edition of 6 + 2AP
Massimo Vitali was born in Como, Italy, in 1944. He moved to London after high school, where he studied Photography at the London College of Printing. In the early Sixties he started working as a photojournalist, collaborating with many magazines and agencies in Italy and in Europe. It was during this time that he met Simon Guttmann, the founder of the agency Report, who was to become fundamental in Massimo’s growth as a “Concerned Photographer”.
At the beginning of the Eighties a growing mistrust in the belief that photography had an absolute capacity to reproduce the subtleties of reality led to a change in his career path. He began working as a cinematographer for television and cinema. However, his relationship with the still camera never ceased, and he eventually turned his attention back to”photography as a means for artistic research”.
His series of Italian beach panoramas began in the light of drastic political changes in Italy. Massimo started to observe his fellow countrymen very carefully. He depicted a “sanitized, complacent view of Italian normalities”, at the same time revealing “the inner conditions and disturbances of normality: its cosmetic fakery, sexual innuendo, commodified leisure, deluded sense of affluence, and rigid conformism”.1
Over the past 12 years he has developed a new approach to portraying the world,illuminating the apotheosis of the Herd, expressing and commenting through the most intriguing, palpable forms of contemporary art – Photography.
2. Goldschmied & Chiari
Nympheas #33, 2011
© Goldschmied & Chiari
C-print, 40 inches
Edition 3 + 2AP
The Nympheas by Italian duo Goldschmied & Chiari (Eleonor Chiari and Sara Goldschmied) – works from this series will be on display at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington from June 2015.
‘Nympheas’ (Water Lillies) is a series of 40 photographs taken ‘en plein air’ in Rome between 2003 and 2011. The subject of these works is the polluted Tiber river studded with flowers, made of coloured plastic bags created and positioned by the artists, echoing the flowers from Claude Monet’s iconic ‘Nympheas’. These works are an ironic reference to the dichotomy between the natural and artificial, the urban and rural. Two ‘Nympheas’ from 2007, initiated through a commission of Museion Museum of Contemporary Art, Bolzano, Italy are included in FLORILEGIA. These works were part of a 27 metre long panoramic photographic installation on the fence around the museum, reproducing a nymphea garden.
Sara Goldschmied (1975) and Eleonora Chiari (b.1971) have been working as an artistic duo since 2001 under the name goldiechiari but now practice as Goldschmied & Chiari. They live and work between Rome and Milan. A solo exhibition of their work has recently toured to Centre d’Art Contemporaine Passerelle, Brest (France) and Villa Croce, Museum of Contemporary Art, Genova (Italy). ‘Nympheas’ will be included in the Women to Watch exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington from June 5th and work by Goldschmied & Chiari is also included in the group exhibition Prophetia at the Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona until june 7th 2015.
3. Miles Aldridge
Actress #4, 2012
© Miles Aldridge
Lambda print, 40 x 56 inches
Edition 6 + 2AP
Born in London in 1964, Aldridge studied illustration at Central St Martins and briefly directed music videos before becoming a photographer in the mid-90s. He has published his work in many influential magazines including Vogue Italia, Numéro, The New York Times and The New Yorker. His work was showcased in Weird Beauty at the International Center for Photography in New York in 2009 and he has works in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London
INFORMATIONS
AIPAD 2015
16 – 19 April, 2015
The Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10065
USA
http://www.aipad.com
Grimaldi Gavin Gallery
27 Albemarle Street London
London W1S 4DW
United Kingdom
http://www.grimaldigavin.com
