Fotografe! Women Photographers: Alinari Archives to Contemporary Perspectives

Women Photographers: Alinari Archives to Contemporary Perspectives

This exhibit was conceived as a dialogue between original works of more than forty female photographers in the Alinari Archives and works of ten young Italian women artists. Photographers born in different times, places, and social contexts are brought together to shed light on a number of photographers, many of whom have been ignored, and reflect on today’s artistic practices, beginning with our connection to the past and the importance of memory in a world where societal roles and paradigms are constantly in flux.

The exhibit, which offers up two mirror image itineraries, one in Villa Bardini and the other in Forte Belvedere, offers a revitalized look at the history of photography from its origins to the 20th century and up to current day, enriching it with descriptions of both early photographic techniques and today’s most recent experiments.

Fotografe! Villa Bardini

On display here are singular objects, vintage prints, and albums from the Alinari Archives, works by women artists born in the 1800s and 1900s, some of whom are well-known, such as Julia Margaret Cameron and Margaret Bourke-White, while other are less-known, forgotten, or even anonymous, as is the case with most of the "pioneers" whose rare daguerreotypes open this exhibition.

Particular space has been given to one archive in particular, that of Wanda and Marion Wulz. On show are unseen works by the two sister photographers from Trieste, who started working in the 1920s, as well as Wanda’s famous overprint "Io+gatto", visible for the first time with the two negatives. The entire archive is of extraordinary importance to the history of photography, and this exhibition represents the beginning of a systematic and thorough exploration of it, so that we can one day appreciate their work fully.

Federica Belli, Myriam Meloni, Giulia Parlato, and Sofia Uslenghi - all born in the 1980s and 1990s - engage with the works from the Archive, eliminate some of the gap that exists between the women coming from a distant and complex past and themselves, and consequently initiate a dialogue that is often intimate in nature. As the commonality they discover is often based on difference, the contemporary photographers explore themes that recur elsewhere in the exhibit, such as portraiture or self-portraiture, or the importance of the past, and its role in our lives.

Fotografe! Forte Belvedere

In this location, the heart of the exhibit is comprised of artworks discovered in the Alinari Archives, including works by fifteen well-known artists of the twentieth century, such as Diane Arbus, Inge Morath, and Bettina Rheims, as well as key figures in the history of Italian photography, such as Lisetta Carmi, Chiara Samugheo, Marialba Russo, and Ketty La Rocca, here represented with a number of photographic artworks.

At the centre of the exhibit is a focus on a surprising collection that is part of the Alinari Archives, that of Edith Arnaldi, a collection that has yet to be explored in depth. Born in Vienna in 1884, and principally known for her writing and work done in the Futurist era under the pseudonym Rosa Rosà, Arnaldi is, for the most part, unknown for her photography. As with the Wulz archive on display at Villa Bardini, this exhibit marks the beginning of detailed research into her work, in order to appreciate it in its entirety.

The artists who were chosen to dialogue with works present in the Alinari Archives are Eleonora Agostini, Arianna Arcara, Marina Caneve, Francesca Catastini, Roselena Ramistella, and Alba Zari, all of whom were born in the 1980s. Each of the contemporary photographers sought out a point of contact with the archived photographers and used forms of expression that echo with the past in both a conceptual and reflective manner. The result is a fascinating dialogue, never clichéd or pedantic, that grants us a new vision and understanding of the works present in the Alinari Archive.

Virtual tour: visit Villa Bardini

Virtual tour: visit Forte Belvedere