At the Museo di Roma in Trastevere the first exhibition in Italy by photographer Peggy Kleiber

From May 19 to October 15, 2023, the Museo di Roma in Trastevere is hosting the first exhibition in Italy by photographer Peggy Kleiber. The exhibition entitled PEGGY KLEIBER. All the Days of Life (Photographs 1959-1992) is curated by Arianna Catania and Lorenzo Pallini, is promoted by Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Cultura - Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali and realized by the cultural associations Marmorata169 and On Image, with the collaboration of the association Les photographies de Peggy Kleiber. Zètema Progetto Cultura museum services.

The exhibition stems from the discovery of two suitcases, never opened, containing 15,000 photographs taken between the late 1950s and the 1990s. A discovery made after her death in 2015, following which the family decided to enhance and make public this important heritage that had long remained hidden.

Peggy Kleiber is an independent woman who grew up in a large and lively family in Moutier, Switzerland, among poetry, music and literature, with a great passion for photography as a tool for expression and knowledge. She is a non-professional photographer, later to become a teacher, who centers her research at the intersection of private and collective history. Her photographs, all taken with her inseparable Leica M3, tell intimate moments of life while narrating places, atmospheres and collective events during forty years. For Peggy, the camera is a way to hide and reveal, including herself. As in her first self-portrait, taken precisely in ’61 and chosen as the symbolic image of the exhibition. His are signature shots, often seemingly random, that speak a universal language. They are images of a bygone time, forgotten colors, silent sounds and voices. In search of the subtle and the imperceptible, Peggy imposes her silent, receptive and empathetic presence. Thus are born open photographs that are not documents of a lost past, but traces of places still alive: from family photographs to travels, in Italy and Rome.

There are 150 photographs on display with a selection of the author’s original vintage prints, some family albums and a video that traces the rediscovery of the archive through unpublished materials and family Super8 footage. The exhibition consists of two sections: one dedicated to her family and the other to her travels in Italy, particularly to Rome starting in the early 1960s. In the first section are the photographs that Peggy took over many years of her family, during celebrations, weddings, births. In the passage of time, an intimate and emotionally dense narrative thus goes on spontaneously, piece by piece.

In the second section, dedicated to her travels throughout Europe, the great attention devoted to Italy, almost a homeland of choice for her, stands out for its intensity. Peggy Kleiber manages to approach even the most marginal social strata, allowing herself to be enchanted by unknown places. In Rome, hers is a “flânerie” not only literary and artistic, but also political and cultural: a journey that takes her from the historic center (traveled far and wide in the less touristy corners and at often unusual hours) to the city’s most extreme suburbs and to the margins of the borgate, precisely in the years when writers like Pasolini were discovering its stories.

However, her curiosity does not stop there, and Peggy Kleiber from Rome goes on to discover hidden Italy: particularly Umbria and Tuscany, falling in love with the treasures of art, but also Sicily, another beloved land, where she forges ties that will last for years to follow. Here she meets again Danilo Dolci, whom she had already met in Switzerland, portraying him in some precious and unpublished photographs during the “reverse strikes” while dwelling on the faces of the children of Partinico. Peggy Kleiber travels through her time and brings universal, collective history closer to intimate personal history with her unobtrusive presence: in her soft black-and-white images, she manages to place a vital space between herself and the subject, telling 40 years of rapidly changing world history.

Whether she turns her gaze to her own familiar microcosm or places it on the world’s peripheries or the hidden life of cities, Peggy Kleiber guides us to slow observation, urges us to pay more attention to the emotions between people and the “subtle” gestures, inviting us to discover something we thought we had forgotten.

Short biography

Born June 25, 1940 in Moutier, Peggy Kleiber grew up in an environment rich in cultural stimulation, with many brothers and sisters. Peggy is the second child: lively, sensitive, curious and generous. She loves literature and music and met her passion for photography in 1961 in Hamburg, attending the Hambuger Fotoschule. This experience marks a turning point in Peggy’s life: from that moment on, her Leica M3 will follow her every step of the way, in family rituals and celebrations, as well as on trips abroad, discovering the world. From the beginning of the 1960s, she travels all over Europe (Paris, Prague, Amsterdam, Leningrad, just to name a few destinations), devoting great attention to Italy: Rome and Sicily are two important chapters that allow her to experience and be enchanted by unknown places. For Peggy Kleiber, the camera is a way to hide and reveal, including herself. She does this through the splendid cycle of family photos, encapsulated in the self-published book “Rue Neuve 44 Chronicle of Family Life 1963-1983” and given to her relatives in 2006. From the late 1970s onward, she devoted herself passionately to teaching, without abandoning photography, which became a way to look back on the interweaving of lifelong relationships. Peggy passed away prematurely in 2015.

For info: www.museodiromaintrastevere.it

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Image: Peggy Kleiber, Self-Portrait (detail).

At the Museo di Roma in Trastevere the first exhibition in Italy by photographer Peggy Kleiber

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