Alba, at Ferrero Foundation, Guido Harari's exhibition on portraiture as a tool for investigation

The Ferrero Foundation of Alba in Cuneo presents from April 5 to May 26, 2024, Guido Harari’s exhibition project HARARI / ITALIANS, a journey in the making that the photographer has been cultivating for more than 30 years and that unfolds through the faces and stories of a selection of personalities who have left and are still leaving their mark on Italian history. Guido Harari’s photography project also includes the screening of the documentary “Guido Harari. Sguardi randagi” (Italy, 2023, 52’) directed by Daniele Cini.

HARARI / ITALIANS restores a narrative through images of the exceptional figures who shaped Italy’s historical memory. The idea stemmed from Harari’s meeting with journalist Beppe Severgnini, who in the late 1990s launched the program “Italians, that is, Italians” on RAI, where he interviewed thirty world-famous compatriots. These included Umberto Eco, Dario Fo, Gina Lollobrigida, Alberto Tomba, Gae Aulenti, Krizia and many others. Guido Harari’s choral portrait extends to personalities such as Alda Merini, who welcomes the photographer to her apartment on the Navigli; Gianni Agnelli, who recounts his encounter with Andy Warhol; Ennio Morricone, who suggests that he be portrayed hiding behind a door, leaving visible only his own glasses floating in mid-air; and Nicolò Govoni and Bebe Vio, two young people who fight every day to build the Italian society of tomorrow. Anticipating the exhibition, a preview of the book to be published by the end of the year by Rizzoli Lizard Editore, is an album that, in addition to the photographic documentation of the exhibition, includes collaborations by Guido Harari and Beppe Severgnini.

“The documentary chronicles the life and art of one of the greatest contemporary Italian photographers, a master of musical portraits. Anyone who comes to mind an iconic image of Lou Reed or David Bowie, Frank Zappa or Kate Bush or of Italians Giorgio Gaber, Fabrizio de André, Vasco Rossi, Gianna Nannini, is most likely thinking of a Guido Harari photograph,” the video plays.

“In portraits as in life, the right moment is suddenly. There is a spike of attention during a shoot. In a progression of immersing ourselves in another world, a maximum level of concentration, of emotion production, is produced and sustained. Soon the silence of a telepathic, nonverbal communication is established. A non-intellectual, totally emotional mode of encounter,” explains Guido Harari.

Notes on the artist

Guido Harari, born in 1952, is a self-taught photographer inspired by the great rock and jazz photographers of the 1950s and 1960s, and established himself in the early 1970s as a photographer and music journalist. Over time he has also explored reportage, institutional portraiture, advertising and fashion, working with major Italian and international newspapers. Numerous record covers for artists such as Kate Bush, David Crosby, Bob Dylan, B.B. King, Ute Lemper, Paul McCartney, Michael Nyman, Lou Reed, Simple Minds and Frank Zappa. In Italy, he has collaborated mainly with Claudio Baglioni, Andrea Bocelli, Angelo Branduardi, Vinicio Capossela, Paolo Conte, Pino Daniele, Fabrizio De André, Eugenio Finardi, Ligabue, Mia Martini, Gianna Nannini, PFM, Vasco Rossi and the La Scala Philharmonic conducted by Riccardo Muti. He has produced numerous books and solo exhibitions, as well as curated projects such as the large multimedia exhibition on Fabrizio De André produced by Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, the exhibition Art Kane. Visionary for the Galleria civica in Modena and for Fondazione Made in Cloister in Naples, and the exhibition Pino Daniele Alive, also at Fondazione Made in Cloister in Naples. In 2011 he launched Wall Of Sound Gallery, a photography gallery dedicated to the imagery of music, in Alba, where he has resided for years, which was later joined by Wall Of Sound Editions, a publisher of limited edition catalogs and books.

Alba, at Ferrero Foundation, Guido Harari's exhibition on portraiture as a tool for investigation

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