Mario DeBiasi: Reading
2003; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 31; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1543-3404
Autores Tópico(s)Educational and Social Studies
ResumoAn exhibition curated by Maria Cristina Didero In collaboration with the 7th International Festival of Literature, Mantua Isabella diEste Apartments, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua, Italy September 3rd - September 28th, 2003 Exhibition catalogue by CHARTA. While a young teenager escapes from the rigid rules of her family, cultured young students sits in a library and an old master stops painting and enjoys a pipe in his studio. They all move their eyes left to right, up and down. They all seem in need of a book to help them understand the world. These three images, by the photographer Mario De Biasi, are part of an exhibition of his work entitled Reading, on view at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, Italy. In the first image, a girl revives teenage memories of freedom in the years immediately following the Second World War. De Biasi captures how, in an age without television--when destruction and pervading fear changed suddenly into curiosity--the young generation would spend hours building their own glittery worlds from the pages of novels, magazines, and comics. In the second image, a library in New York City looks deserted. Early in the morning only those who count themselves among the most devoted readers are to be found there, but Mario De Biasi is there too. He captures the readers' quiet passion and documents their consideration of pages and words, their movement towards concepts and knowledge. In the third image, the old master, De Chirico, the metaphysic painter who entered Italian art history in the mid-20th century, sits on a comfortable chair flipping pages in a moment of peaceful concentration. The portrait is superb. The head of the painter is set exactly in the center of a painted portrait behind him. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] These three images were all made by an acute seer of the 20th century--the tireless traveller of time and space and the photographer of both common and prestigious people. His black and white images are of a time that has gone, but contain a touch of the strength of the future. The photographs exhibited by Mario De Biasi in the exhibition Reading demonstrate a fascination with the world and a passion for it. De Biasi, along with Boubat, Cartier-Bresson, Gardin, and Riboud, was part of a generation of travelers and explorers who, during the last fifty years, trekked the whole world, looking for and capturing the hours of innumerable human lives, writing them in lines and rhythms. Their achievements consist of a long visual ode to the century, an initiatory journey. Within the scope of his career, the prolific Mario De Biasi has traveled the world, and even at the age of 80 he has no desire to rest. Through his long collaboration with Epoca, the Italian magazine, he is considered by many to be the father of photojournalism in his country. De Biasi has contributed greatly to the creation of a dynasty of young photographers working out of their studios, with travel bags ready and cameras always in hand. …
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