Between fragility and beauty: Paolo Solari Bozzi's Greenland on display in Milan

From February 13 to March 28, 2025, Still Gallery in Milan is hosting the exhibition Light and Silence. Greenland by photographer Paolo Solari Bozzi (Rome, 1957), curated by Denis Curti. The exhibition, composed of forty large-format shots strictly in black and white, recounts a six-year-long journey, from 2016 to 2022, in the inhospitable and fascinating lands of Greenland. The uniqueness of Solari Bozzi’s shots lies in the technique: analog photographs on film, then printed in the author’s own darkroom. A process that requires time, patience and dedication, but which allows every detail of the Arctic landscape to be captured with intense expressive depth. The geopolitical context makes Solari Bozzi’s visual narrative even more relevant. Greenland is indeed at the center of international debates because of its strategic importance and natural resources. From hydrocarbon deposits to rare earths and new polar routes opened by global warming, the island is a symbol of the fragility of the planet. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen recently reiterated that “Greenland is not for sale” in response to Donald Trump’s controversial statements, turning the spotlight on the island and its peculiarities. Solari Bozzi’s images, however, are not limited to the landscape.

“My journey began in the west of the island, thanks to Roberto Peroni and his Red House, in Tasiilaq, and then, expedition after expedition, it went as far north as Qaanaaq,” Solari Bozzi says. “Here it is possible to follow with the camera during the daily seal or narwhal hunt the Inuit, still dressed in bearskin, which remains even today the traditional - and perhaps best - way to combat Arctic temperatures. I proudly note the invitation from Konrad Steffen, an internationally renowned Swiss professor and researcher, founder of Swiss Camp, a research base in the middle of the island, who has been collecting weather and climate data for more than 30 years and whom I had the honor of following during one of his expeditions.”

Solari Bozzi is one of the rare photographers, together with Ragnar Axelsson and Carsten Egevang, who tell the story of Greenland in a professional manner and who restore through their work that world of light and ice, where man is a very rare presence: a slow photography, with only a few shots per session (4 to 10) that arises in challenging environmental contexts (in winter, in Greenland, temperatures of -60 degrees are reached). Some of the photographs on display are part of the volume Greenland Into White, published in 2017 by Electa, where Solari Bozzi collected his first impressions of the island. “You cross the fjord with dogs and sleds only when it is frozen, otherwise you need boats. Every year the waters melt earlier and freeze later, dramatically shrinking man and animals from their hunting grounds. I look for unique scenes and moments: spectacular snowstorms, shaggy-haired dogs, people staggering under wind gusts, Inuit, log cabins. Being there is fascinating; one cannot linger because one’s body, hands and face freeze. It is a challenge: both physically and mentally and photographically,” the artist says.

“Without ever pandering solely to the aesthetic component of the image, Solari Bozzi’s work recalls the modus operandi of the great landscape photographers of photographic history,” writes Denis Curti in the presentation text. "We are talking about photography that is still analog, slow, thought out and designed (Solari Bozzi uses black and white film and makes his prints in a darkroom). These landscapes, collected by Solari Bozzi from 2016 to 2022, certainly start from a mechanical gesture, but then incorporate into the narrative the infinite expressive possibilities of romantic symbolism and landscape plasticity. Always keeping fixed on the horizon, as in Adams’ famous shot Moonrise over Hernandez (1941), the modern threat of the disappearance of these ancestral places."

The exhibition opens Tuesday through Friday from 2 to 7 p.m. Free admission. For information visit the Still Photography website.

Notes on the artist

Paolo Solari Bozzi, a photographer and lawyer by profession, has a long experience behind the lens. From a young age he has explored the world with a camera around his neck, driven by curiosity and a desire to retain on film the beauty of the places he has visited. After studying in several European cities, including Venice, and traveling in North Africa and the Middle East, Solari Bozzi turned to black-and-white photography, setting up a darkroom in his Engadine home. His main works, besides Greenland, include reportages made in Zambia and Namibia, collected in the volumes Zambian Portraits (Skira, 2015) and Namibia Sun Pictures (Tecklenborg, 2013).

Between fragility and beauty: Paolo Solari Bozzi's Greenland on display in Milan

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