A recent photograph from Francesca Marti’s series Cities in a Crooked Line, printed on zinc plate and then crumpled by the artist, is included in a large-scale group exhibition of contemporary international photography at Galleria Il Ponte Contemporanea in Rome, curated by Giuliano Matricardi. Organized to coincide with the 2017 Venice Biennale, the Rome exhibition is entitled Blow-Up after the classic 1966 film by Michelangelo Antonioni, in which a photographer believes he has unwittingly captured a murder with his camera, in an ambiguous image lurking at the edge of the frame. The exhibition also traces more than 20 years of the gallery’s research in contemporary photography.
Francesca Martì, Saigon – Cities in a Crooked Line, 2017.
Photograph printed on crumpled zinc plate. 60 x 60 x 30 cm
«Blow-Up» includes important photo-based works by Nobuyoshi Araki (Japan), Matteo Basilè (Italy), David Byrne (USA), Erwin Blumenfeld (Germany), Sylvie Fleury (France), Thomas Glassford (UK), Matthias Herrmann (Austria), Fritz Kok (Netherlands), Myriam Laplante (Bangladesh/Canada), Francesca Martì (Spain), John McRae (Australia), Tracey Moffatt (Australia), Erwin Olaf (Netherlands), Dino Pedriali (Italy), Katharina Sierverding (Germany), Melati Suryodarmo (Indonesia), Inez van Lamsweerde (Netherlands) and Baron Wilhelm Von Gloeden (Germany). This multi-layered exhibition opens on Thursday May 18 and runs through September 15, 2017.
Blow-Up features a solo show by Sydney artist John McRae in Gallery 1. McRae’s ongoing «Spot the Arab» series, one work of which is currently hanging in the contemporary portraiture show at the Australian National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, is a suite of photographs exploring the stereotypes and prejudices of our attitudes towards Muslims today. McRae’s photos portraits are accomanied by a critical text by Jonathan Turner. Tracey Moffatt, who has been selected as the artist in the Australian Pavilion at the 2017 Biennale di Venezia, and who has shown in five different solo exhibitions at Galleria Il Ponte Contemporanea since 1998, is represented by three older photographs. Meanwhile, a series of vintage prints by Dino Pedriali captures a quartet of cultural figureheads: black-and-white portraits of dancer Rudolf Nureyev, sculptor George Segal, film director PierPaolo Pasolini and artist Andy Warhol.
A section of the Blow-Up show is dedicated to photo-based works by seven women artists from Galleria Il Ponte Contemporanea, all of whom have been featured in previous editions of the Venice Biennale.
Sylvie Fleury (France – Aperto, 1993 Venice Biennale)
Inez van Lamsweerde (Netherlands – Rietveld Arsenale, 2009 Venice Biennale)
Myriam Laplante (Bangladesh/Canada – Fondazione Bevilaqua La Masa, 2001 Venice Biennale)
Tracey Moffatt (Australia – Aperto, 1997 Venice Biennale, and Australian Pavilion, 2017 Venice Biennale)
Francesca Marti’ (Spain – Venice International Experimental Film and Performance Art Festival, 2015 Venice Biennale )
Katharina Sieverding (Germany – 1976 and 1980 Venice Biennales)
Melati Suryodarmo (Indonesia – Dreams and Conflicts curated by Francesco Bonami, 2003 Venice Biennale)
Blow-Up at Galleria Il Ponte Contemporanea, Rome. Friday, May 18 through September 15, 2017
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