Exhibition
The exhibition presents a selection of 30 images by one of the most celebrated Italian photographers, Maurizio Galimberti – famous for his portraits of celebrities from the cinema, sport, culture and society – who here compares himself with the history of the twentieth century, retracing it through its protagonists, such as John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and those crucial episodes that characterized its development, from the war in Vietnam, to the attack on the Twin Towers, to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Galimberti, Fuji Ambassador since 2017, has established himself thanks to his mosaic compositions, created with instant cameras, in which the subject – be it a person or a portion of the city – is broken down into numerous shots, often corresponding to different perspectives, and recomposed into a multifaceted image.
Using his distinctive technique, Galimberti explores the twentieth century, giving new life and meaning to photographs by other artists. The exhibition includes sections portraying major figures such as Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela playfully sparring with Muhammad Ali, Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on his desk at the United Nations Assembly in New York, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta tenderly embracing a child.
It is through the faces of children—almost refugees from their own dreams, urgently needing a future that seems difficult or impossible to face—that Galimberti chooses to tell the tragedies of the twentieth century.
These include dramatic images of children at Auschwitz, in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Vietnam and Srebrenica, as well as young migrants who died on a beach, were separated from their parents at the United States–Mexico border or sought safety in soldiers’ arms.
Galimberti also documents the scourge of terrorism: the attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the attacks on the Twin Towers and the bombing that killed Italian soldiers in Nasiriyah.
In this review, the history of the twentieth century is seen through highly dramatic episodes, with images that in many cases have remained imprinted in each of us, but also through characters, faces and gestures that tell of the possibility of a positive look at reality.
