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Exhibition opening times 27-29 May 10 am – 8 pm 30 May - 3 July Monday - Friday 10 am – 1 pm and 3pm – 6 pm Saturday, Sunday and holidays 10 am – 6 pm
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Ferdinando Scianna
At Play
This exhibition has been created specifically for Dialogues by a master of contemporary photography, continuing his work on the subject of play through 50 black and white photographs taken between 1962 and 2007.
Scianna is a photographer-game player, not only because he views photography as a way of playing with more or less visible mirrors, but also because every one of his pictures is a puzzle, a game encompassing other games. “You cannot photograph play, just as you cannot photograph love: you can only take pictures of lovers. So you can only show people at play”, explains Scianna. “When choosing this series of images taken over time, a reporter like myself reacts to situations and forms, which, in one way or another recount and evoke what life’s experience has deposited in our conscious imagination, especially during childhood”.
The exhibition is complemented by a photographic installation Scianna has created on the subject on gambling addiction: a montage of large colour photographs created to catapult us into the innards of the places where play becomes corrupt and human beings lose themselves.
Ferdinando Scianna, one of Italy’s leading photographers, started his career in the 1960s while he was a student of Humanities and Philosophy at Palermo University. In 1963 he met the Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia, and together they published the first of their many joint books, Feste religiose in Sicilia, that received the Nadar Award. Henri Cartier-Bresson introduced him to Magnum and he was hired by the agency in 1982. Since 1987, Scianna enjoys international renown owing to his work as a photo reporter, a portrait artist, as well as a fashion and advertising photographer. In the last few years he began writing critiques and articles for Italian and French media. His books include: Marpessa, un racconto (Leonardo, 1993); Altrove: reportage di moda (Federico Motta, 1995); Viaggio a Lourdes (Mondadori, 1996); Altre Forme del Caos (2000), La Geometria e la Passione (2009), Baaria, Bagheria (con G. Tornatore, 2009) for Contrasto; Etica e fotogiornalismo (Electa, 2010); Lo specchio vuoto. Fotografia, identità, memoria (Laterza, 2013); Piccoli mondi (2012), Ti mangio con gli occhi (2013), Visti & scritti (2014), In gioco (2016) for Contrasto.