At the Gallerie d'Italia in Turin, the most important retrospective of American photographer Mitch Epstein

From October 17, 2024 to March 2, 2025, the Gallerie d’Italia in Turin will host the exhibition Mitch Epstein. American Nature, curated by Brian Wallis of the CPW - Center for Photography at Woodstock. The exhibition, intended to be the most important retrospective devoted to the American photographer, brings together for the first time the most relevant photographic series he has produced over the past two decades. The works explore the conflicts between American society and wilderness in the context of global climate change, with the series American Power, Property Rights and Old Growth.

In American Power, Epstein investigates how nations and private interests exploit nature, documenting the impact of energy production and consumption on the landscape and people of the United States. Between 2003 and 2008, the photographer traveled across the country to capture fossil fuel and nuclear power production sites, as well as the communities living next to them.

The Property Rights series asks the question of who owns the land and who has the right to its resources. These images explore the complex dynamics of land ownership in a nation shaped by colonial expansion and industrial development. Epstein began this project in 2017 at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, where conversations with native elders inspired him to document other land conflicts, in which ordinary citizens started movements to protect land from government and corporate appropriation.

Old Growth, Epstein’s most recent work, previews a section commissioned by Intesa Sanpaolo, devoted to ancient forests remaining in remote parts of the United States. The photographer focuses on individual trees and interdependent biosystems that have endured for centuries, many even millennia, in a country that has lost about 95 percent of its original forests in the past century.

Epstein’s large-format photographs take visitors into a primordial wilderness untouched by humans, celebrating the majesty and resilience of these ancient ecosystems and highlighting what we are in danger of losing to the climate crisis.

In addition to the three photo series, the immersive room at the Gallerie d’Italia in Turin will premiere Forest Waves, an original video and sound installation by Mitch Epstein that captures the four seasons in the Berkshire forests. The video, which will surround viewers, is accompanied by a hypnotic soundtrack created by musicians Mike Tamburo and Samer Ghadry, recorded in those very forests. In addition, Turin’s Gallerie d’Italia Arena will host the short film Darius Kinsey: Clear Cut, a collection of stills by early 20th-century photographer Darius Kinsey (1859-1945), depicting loggers posing next to giant felled trees in the American Northwest. The projection is accompanied by music composed by David Lang and performed by cellist and singer Maya Beiser. The two installations together represent a tribute to the American wilderness, an ode to what remains and an elegy for what has been destroyed.

The exhibition catalog, published by Edizioni Gallerie d’Italia | Skira in Italian and English, includes essays by curator and art historians Robert Slifkin and Makeda Djata Best, as well as an interview with Mitch Epstein.

The exhibition has the patronage of the Piedmont Region and the City of Turin.

Image: Sitka Spruce, Hoh Rain Forest, Olympic National Park, Washington 2017 © Mitch Epstein

At the Gallerie d'Italia in Turin, the most important retrospective of American photographer Mitch Epstein

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