Paolo Ventura Carousel 2

Ventura grew up in Milan with summers spent in the hilltops of Eastern Tuscany. His father, Piero Ventura, was a children's book author during the 1970s and 1980s. At the end of the 1980s, Ventura attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera.

At the beginning of the 1990s he started working as a fashion photographer. In a few years he was working with fashion magazines such as Elle, MarieClaire, Amica, Vogue Gioiello, among others.

 

 Toward the end of the 1990s, ten years into his career, Ventura gradually stepped out of the world of fashion photography and he moved to New York to pursue his personal artistic path. In his studio in Brooklyn he began to build and photograph small dioramas about World War II in Italy, based on memories and tales from his grandmother

 

 

 

.

There is a hazy sense of timelessness in the photographs of Paolo Ventura. He makes images out of cardboard and various objects found from flea markets and even eBay, to build into what he calls the 'invented worlds' or 'ir-realities'.

He then photograhs this 'invented worlds' as if they wrere life-size. Results in a dreamy atmosphere, something between fantasy and memory.

 Location : CAMERA

 

Paolo Ventura Carousel 1

Paolo Ventura Carousel is an exhibition at the CAMERA - Centro Italiano per la Fotografia. It is one of the most interesting and fun exhibition so far this year.

From 17 September to 8 December CAMERA hosts Carousel, a journey within the eclectic career of Paolo Ventura (Milan, 1968), one of the most recognized and appreciated Italian artists in Italy and abroad.

 

After working for years as a fashion photographer, at the beginning of the 2000s he moved to New York to devote himself to his artistic research. From his earliest works, he combines great manual skills with a poetic vision of the world, building sets within which short fairy-tale and surreal stories come to life, then immortalized by the camera. With "War Souvenir" (2005), a reworking of the atmosphere of the First World War through small theatrical sets and puppets, he obtained his first important awards, such as being included in the BBC documentary "The Genius of Photography" in 2007. 

 

After ten years in the United States, he returns to Italy where he realizes some of his most famous projects, within which he mixes photography, painting, sculpture and theater, such as in the scenography of "Pagliacci" by Ruggero Leoncavallo, the result of the important collaboration with the Teatro Regio di Torino, of which CAMERA exhibited some preparatory works in January 2017.
 

 

On this occasion, the rooms of CAMERA present some of the most evocative works of the last fifteen years - from various collections, as well as from the artist's studio - in an absolute mixture of languages ​​that includes drawings, models, sets, papier-mâché masks and theatrical costumes. However, it is not a linear path or a retrospective, but rather a staging of all the recurring themes of his poetics, among which that of the double and fiction stand out. Two unpublished projects are also on display: «Grazia Received», an affectionately ironic reinterpretation of the ex voto theme, and "La Gamba Ritrovata", the result of a residency carried out at the Central Institute for Catalog and Documentation in Rome, launched thanks to collaboration between CAMERA and the ministerial body.

Location : CAMERA

 

Kneel To Move

 The guy with his trademark way of asking for charity has move to via Pietro Micca, under the arcade.

 

I think there are more than one of them, once I even saw a young woman was doing the same thing in via Lagrange. It is a more dramatic way to move your heart to give them something.....at the same time, can't help to feel that it looks rather fake...

Location : Via Pietro Micca

Interesting Manhole

Saw this manhole at the area of the MAU, the meseum of Urban Arts, looks quite interesting and it just caught my eyes.

 

Have to admit that the post title does sound weird though.

 

Location : Via Rivara

Autumn Leaf

The rain and the cold have announced the arrival of Autumn.

However, at this time, most of the leaves have not yet changed color, just the first batch of newly dried leaves falling and being sent all over the place by the wind.

Location : Turin Street

Capa In Color

For the first time in Italy, an exhibition of the photo in color by Robert Capa and it is hled in Palazzo Chiablese.

 

 

The exhibition is interesting, as quite detail description of the famous photgragher's professional journey is provided up to the date he was killed by landmine in indochina.

 

 

The photos were intended to tell audiences about the daily life of ordinary people and distant countries, in a radically different way from the war reports that had guided Capa's early career. Among these early works are the photographs of Moscow's Red Square, taken during a trip to the USSR in 1947 for a project together with the writer John Steinbeck and the life of the first settlers in Israel in 1949-50. For the Generation X project created together with many other famous photographers from the Magnum agency, Capa traveled to Oslo, Essen, northern Norway and Paris to capture the life and dreams of the younger generation born before the war.

 

 

 

 

Capa's photographs also present readers with an interesting portrait of high society, due to the wise and elegant use of color photography. In 1950, he portrayed the hippest ski resorts in the Swiss, Austrian and French Alps, and the charming French beaches of Biarritz and Deauville for the burgeoning tourist market featured by Holiday magazine. He also took several fashion photographs, along the quays of the Seine and in Place Vendôme. He photographed several actors and directors on film sets, such as Ingrid Bergman in Roberto Rossellini's Journey to Italy, Orson Welles in Black Rose and John Huston in Moulin Rouge. During this period he also made a series of portraits, such as those of Pablo Picasso, photographed on a beach with his son Claude, or of Giacometti in his studio in Paris. The color imagery was an indissoluble part of the post-war reconstruction and vitality.

 

 

 

 

Capa in color is an exhibition that offers the unique opportunity to explore the strong ten-year bond of the master with color photography, through a fascinating journey that illustrates post-World War II society. His talent in composing black and white was enormous, but the discovery of the potential of color films almost halfway through his career made it necessary to define a new approach. Capa in color reveals how Robert Capa began to observe the world in a different way and how his business was able to adapt to the new post-war sensibility.

Personally, I am still think his black and white photos have more impact.

P.S. : Putting on masks is obliged in the exhibition rooms, but it seems that there are people who just has no idea how to put on the mask properly....

Location : Palazzo Chiablese

CDP October Theme : My Response To Covid-19

 Masks, is my response to Covid-19, whether at work or just going for a walk, always put on the mask.

So many times, we have to get back home just because we have forgotten the masks. 

Although, it is not an obligation to put on mask when we are in the open, but I just choose to put on one anyway.

 

Please click here to view the other entries...