In Pordenone, for the first time in Italy, a selection of shots from Les Italiens by Bruno Barbey

The Harry Bertoia Gallery in Pordenone presents, from December 22, 2024 to May 4, 2025, for the first time in Italy, about seventy prints from the photographic project created by the celebrated French photographer Bruno Barbey (Morocco 1941 - Paris 2020) between 1962 and 1966, during his period of study in Switzerland. A project documenting Italian life and society in the 1960s. Indeed, in those years Barbey set out to portray Italy in all its facets, photographing people from all walks of life, both in public spaces and in private settings. These images immediately attracted the attention of Robert Delpire, a well-known Parisian publisher, who suggested publishing them in the Essential Encyclopedia series, a collection of books that already included Robert Frank’s The Americans (1958) and René Burri’s Germans (1962). Although the book was never published at the time, the portfolio convinced Magnum Photos members of Barbey’s talent, and he was welcomed into the agency. It was not until 2002, after years of work and numerous publications dedicated to other countries, that Barbey published a first version of this project, with an introduction by Tahar Ben Jelloun.

The basic idea of the photographic project was “to capture the spirit of a nation through images,” offering an authentic portrait of Italians. At the beginning of the 1960s, Italy was in a transitional phase: the traumas of the war were beginning to dissolve while the “economic miracle” was igniting new hopes. Bruno Barbey was among the first to immortalize this historical moment, documenting Italian society from north to south, east to west: boys, aristocrats, nuns, beggars, prostitutes, with an acute gaze that captured the transformations taking place.

The collection, titled Les Italiens, is a kind of modern comédie humaine, populated by archetypal figures whose exotic charm has inspired the cinema of directors such as Pasolini, Visconti and Fellini. The Italy recounted by Barbey is a country recovering from the miseries of war, with a middle class experiencing the enthusiasm of the economic boom and the illusion of new prosperity. The music, fashion and habits of the young symbolize a society beginning to express its status, but alongside this new vitality deep pockets of poverty still persisted, especially in the center and south of the country.

Barbey’s reportage offers an extraordinary fresco of Italy in those years, a portrait that, while steeped in nostalgia, sincerely reveals the contrasts of a land in transformation. Numerous foreign photographers, from Henri Cartier-Bresson to William Klein, have documented Italy and its inhabitants, and among them Bruno Barbey’s work stands out for his ability to capture unique nuances, immersing himself deeply in the country’s social and cultural reality.

The exhibition at the Harry Bertoia Gallery in Pordenone is curated by Caroline Thiénot-Barbey and Marco Minuz, is sponsored by the City of Pordenone, enjoys the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and the support of the Autonomous Region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It is organized with the support of Magnum Photos, the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Bruno Barbey Archive, and is sponsored by the Consulate of France and the French Cultural Institute in Milan.

Image: Palermo, Sicily, Italy, 1963 © Bruno Barbey/Magnum Photos

In Pordenone, for the first time in Italy, a selection of shots from Les Italiens by Bruno Barbey

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.