An exhibition on the textile tradition in Carpi in the shots of Ferdinando Scianna

From September 16, 2022 to January 30, 2023, the Museums of Palazzo dei Pio in Carpi will host an exhibition celebrating weaving, as it developed in Carpi and throughout the surrounding area, through the photographs of Ferdinando Scianna (Bagheria,1943), one of the most important and celebrated contemporary Italian photographers who, in the late 1980s, dealt more or less directly with the theme of weaving in two works that have become part of the history of photography.

The exhibition, entitled ONLY THE KNITTING. The textile tradition in Carpi in the photographs of Ferdinando Scianna, curated by Manuela Rossi and Luca Panaro, conceived and produced by the Municipality of Carpi - Musei di Palazzo dei Pio, with the contribution of Fondazione Cassa Risparmio di Carpi, in collaboration with Dondi Jersey, documents the history of an excellence of Carpi that, since the 1970s, has seen an important presence of companies that have become, even in the following two decades, a point of reference for the main Italian fashion brands.

The exhibition itinerary opens with 11 original prints by Ferdinando Scianna from his archives that accompany 26 images from the fashion photo campaign book, made for Dolce & Gabbana’s spring 1987 collection, on whose catwalk, for the first time, had paraded garments made of wool jersey, a fabric created precisely in Carpi by some companies in the district. The same book that contains them is under the banner of knitwear, to the point that the cover is white canvas. Accompanying it will be 10 original Dolce & Gabbana garments.

The exhibition continues with 14 photographs taken by Scianna for the Magliacalze association and included in the 1989 volume Maglia (Franco Sciardelli editore), also taken in factories in Carpi and the Carpi district. It is a kind of reportage documenting the production and marketing processes of knitwear. It is the places, the environments, and the people who create the product that interest the photographer: in particular, it is the machines, the workers, the absorbed faces and the precise, determined hands that represent the heart of knitwear.

The exhibition is rounded off with an installation, created in collaboration with Dondi Jersey, that looks at the future of weaving and explores how knitwear comes to market with sustainable garments, produced in part through the recycling of materials.

The initiative is part of the program of festivalfilosophy 2022 Justice, which will be held in Modena, Carpi and Sassuolo from Sept. 16-18, 2022.

Ferdinando Scianna

Ferdinando Scianna was born in Bagheria, Sicily, in 1943. It was in his hometown that he began to devote himself to photography at a very young age, in the early 1960s, recounting in images the culture and traditions of his homeland. In the early 1960s, he came into contact with Leonardo Sciascia, the writer with whom at only 21 years of age he published the essay Feste Religiose in Sicilia, a book that won the prestigious Nadar Prize. The volume creates much controversy, mainly because of Sciascia’s texts, which show the materialistic essence of religious festivals. But the young Scianna’s photos also have their impact.

On the wave of the book’s success, Scianna moved to Milan where he worked for l’Europeo as a photojournalist, then special correspondent and correspondent from Paris, where he lived for 10 years. In Paris he also began to devote himself successfully to writing. He collaborates with various newspapers, including Le Monde Diplomatique and La Quinzaine Littéraire. It was in the French capital that his work was particularly appreciated, by Henri Cartier-Bresson, who in 1982 invited him to apply to the Magnum Photos agency, which he founded in 1947. He returned to Milan and left L’Europeo to devote himself to photography.

In Milan he works for various newspapers. He also begins photographing for two young emerging designers, Dolce and Gabbana. It was a chance meeting that would give rise to one of the most successful collaborations in fashion photography. Scianna is asked to create a catalog by placing the beautiful model Marpessa in the context of his Sicily. Scianna manages to masterfully blend the visual registers of the fashion world with the experience of a photojournalist, creating an original result that breaks the glossy monotony of fashion photography. It is a success that will lead him to collaborate with prestigious international magazines and produce other fashion shoots.

This sudden and unexpected turning point opened Scianna’s photographic world to new experiences, parallel to the more traditional ones of photojournalism: advertising and commercial photography, without ever abandoning social reportage, portraits and journalism.

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Pictured: Ferdinando Scianna, Jersey (1989)

An exhibition on the textile tradition in Carpi in the shots of Ferdinando Scianna

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