A retrospective exhibition dedicated to Letizia Battaglia at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa.

The Sottoporticato of the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa will host the retrospective Letizia Battaglia from April 29 to November 1, 2023. It’s Me, dedicated to Letizia Battaglia, among the most famous photographers of the 20th century and among the first Italian women photojournalists.

The exhibition, curated by Paolo Falcone, and promoted by Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura Genova and Civita Mostre e Musei in collaboration with theLetizia Battaglia Archive and the Falcone Foundation for the Arts, displays more than one hundred large-format photographs, through which the entire professional life of the Sicilian photographer is intended to be traced.

The exhibition is divided into four sections, with black-and-white images and a series of large-format color photos of her latest work, as well as video documents, part of her editorial production and unpublished materials, and focuses on the themes that have most contributed to characterize the artist’s expressive style.

Photographer, editor, environmentalist, political militant and civil rights activist, Letizia Battaglia began her career in photography and journalism in the early 1970s between Sicily and Milan. From 1974 she became photography manager of the Palermo daily l’Ora, bearing witness with her photographs to the Sicilian Mafia and its bloody war, trials, demonstrations, and the cross-section of society on the island. Her art has grown with her civil and political commitment, portraying the deep essence of Sicily, the faces and society of Palermo, the crime scenes and victims of the Mafia and beyond.

Letizia Battaglia captures the images of civil society: women and children in their neighborhoods and streets, describing the wealth and misery of a city abandoned to its fate. She immortalizes Palermo’s middle class and aristocracy, religious processions, festivals and funeral traditions, the psychiatric hospital and the city’s cultural world. In each of the images produced one can perceive the strong attachment to Palermo, Sicily and its people.

Her professional career has seen her collaborate with national and international magazines and found newspapers and journals, including Grande Vu; since 1991 she has co-founded Mezzocielo, a bimonthly magazine on political and environmental culture produced by women only. In 1992, after the Mafia massacres, she founded Le edizioni della Battaglia, to give voice to intellectuals from the area and beyond and later also dealing with political, social and cultural topics by gathering the most authoritative voices from various countries around the world, from the Middle East to Cuba.

Her photographic production has won numerous international awards; she was the first woman (with Donna Ferrato) and the first European photographer to win the W. Eugene Smith Grant in New York in 1985. In 1999 she received The Mother Johnson Achievement for Life in San Francisco. In 2007 she received The Erich Salomon Prize in Germany and in 2009 in New York the Cornel Capa Infinity Award.

Letizia Battaglia is among the 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Peace Women Across the Globe, and in 2017 the New York Times named her among the 11 most representative women of the year (the only Italian).

Accompanying the exhibition is a catalog edited by Paolo Falcone and with texts by Roberto Andò and Giosuè Calaciura published by Contrasto Editore.

For info visit https://palazzoducale.genova.it/

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Mondays.

A retrospective exhibition dedicated to Letizia Battaglia at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa.

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