|
|
Mario
Giacomelli
Le
Marches have had a great poet, a sensitive photographer who managed to
grasp sweetly the precious moments of his times, the fragments of rural
life, the geometrical shapes of tilled land, to project them in the
infinite space of “forever”.
Mario Giacomelli was born in Senigallia and was raised in a poor family.
He began when he was a child (in late ‘30s) to work in typography, but
also to paint and write poems. He bought his first camera (a Comet
Bencini) at the end of 1953, and left it only 47 years later, when he
died, after giving hundreds of valuable emotions to the world and himself,
extraordinary pictures full of his deep love for men’s feelings and his
own land.
The story of Giacomelli as a photographer is marked by several
artistic cycles, starting from the one called La vita d’ospizio (Life
in a home for the elderly) – pictures full of pain and solitude – to
the recent La mia vita intera (My Entire Life) – a comment on
Jorge Luis Borges’ poems. Other cycles include pictures known all over
the world, such as the picture of Scanno (a beautiful and unsullied
village in Abruzzi) and the simplicity of its inhabitants, or the
wonderful cycle called Non ho mani che mi accarezzino il volto (I
have no hands caressing my face, a title taken from a poem by Father David
Maria Turoldo). The author called this cycle Pretini (young
priests), and he is also famous for his air pictures (Presa di
coscienza sulla natura – Gaining awareness of nature), which portray
the Marches’ lands using contrasts between bright lights and dark
shadows.
Giacomelli
portrayed a whole world, using the black and white, showing passion and
sentiment for his land. An anthological exhibition is dedicated to this
photographer and is located in several places of the Marches. The
exhibition aims to deal with the different periods of Giacomelli’s
artistic life, focusing on his poetic world and allowing visitors to
experience the photographer’s sensations fully.
Giacomelli’s
death was a sensation, yet he was humble and bashful, though being famous
all over the world. Indeed, he was not completely aware of his being
renowned, and I like to recall his white silky hair (in contrast with the
darkness surrounding him, as if to materialize in himself the chromatic
contrasts of his pictures). He used to sit at a small table at a corner of
his old typography, and was always willing to talk – lovingly - about
his Comet Bencini camera.
Some
Anthological exhibition
The exhibition covers all
the series that constitute works by Mario Giacomelli, describing
exhaustively his artistic “itinerary”. The exhibition is composed of
620 original pictures, taken between 1953 and 2000.
In Ancona the Mole
Vanvitelliana hosts the widest corpus of Giacomelli’s works (420
original pictures). Series range from the one called “Io sono
nessuno!” (I am nobody!), 1992-1994, to “Verrà la morte e avrà
i tuoi occhi” (Death shall come and it’ll have your eyes),
1954-1983.
The Municipal Palace of
Monte Urano displays 98 works composing the series “Presa di
coscienza sulla natura” (Gaining awareness of nature), namely the
landscapes portrayed between 1954 and 2000.
In Senigallia, the Duke’s
Palace, the Museum of Modern Art and information
(Civic collection Mario Giacomelli) and the Museum
of the history of share cropping host the most recent series, such as
“Questo ricordo lo vorrei raccontare” (I would like to tell
about this memory), 1999-2000; “La notte lava la mente” (The
night washes the mind), 1994-95; “Il Pittore Bastarì” (Bastarì
the painter), 1992-93; 96 works, as well as a theme cycle linked to the
symbols of the Night, Men and the Earth.
© 2001
Liberation Ventures Ltd.
|