Senigallia dedicates an exhibition to Mario Giacomelli, opening celebrations for the centenary of his birth

Until April 6, 2025, the Palazzo del Duca in Senigallia, as part of the celebrations for the centenary of Mario Giacomelli’s birth, is hosting the exhibition Giacomelli’s Darkroom, curated by Katiuscia Biondi Giacomelli and in collaboration with theMario Giacomelli Archive. The exhibition brings together about one hundred original photographs, including vintage and vintage prints, spanning Giacomelli’s entire production from the 1950s to 2000, the year of his death.

The exhibition path kicks off with the multimedia installation Under the Skin of the Real, which reproduces the artist’s creative flow. The audience will be guided by the photographer’s own voice, taken from an interview for Radio 3 Suite in 2000, as moving images and written fragments of thoughts alternate, evoking his profound and poetic vision of photography as a tool for exploring reality and interiority: here, the images follow the same motions of the vertical surges and falls into the void with which Giacomelli chased the Infinite and mimic his gestures in the darkroom, at the enlarger, with the sensitive paper held at an angle to immerse the world in vertigo.

The focus of the exhibition is the darkroom, the place where Giacomelli shaped his imagery. In addition to the works on display, it is possible to see original equipment, such as his Kobell camera, and props used for his shots. As well as print proofs, handwritten notes and interviews documenting the artist’s creative process, which testify to his relentless experimentation.

Particular attention is devoted to the relationship between photography and poetry, a founding element of Giacomelli’s work. Works such as Io non ho mani che mi accarezzino il volto (I have no hands to caress my face), inspired by the texts of Father David Maria Turoldo from which the famous photographic series of Pretini (1961) originated and which opens the exhibition, Cardarelli’s Passato (1986) and Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology (1971-73), testify to how poetry has always been an inexhaustible source of inspiration and introspection for the photographer.

Divided into eight thematic rooms, the exhibition aims to present the inner world of Mario Giacomelli. A tale that, while starting from autobiographical vicissitudes, speaks with the ancient and infinite voice of humanity. In his works, anthropomorphized landscapes become human portraits, interweaving memory and matter in a continuous dialogue. The mother figure, evoked through symbolic elements, emerges as a constant and foundational presence in her artistic vision. Light, a fundamental element of her work, interrupts the darkness to illuminate small and precious fragments of reality, offering a vision between the concrete and the metaphorical.

To conclude the itinerary, the camera obscura returns again, in the photographic reproductions commissioned by Guido Harari on the occasion of the editorial project Nella camera oscura di Mario Giacomelli. L’antro dello sciamano (Rizzoli Lizard, 2024), produced in collaboration with Rita and Simone Giacomelli’s Mario Giacomelli Archive.

Giacomelli’s Camera Oscura is not intended to be just an exhibition, but a journey into the creative universe of an artist who knew how to speak to the soul of man through photography, transforming each image into a fragment of interiority and poetry.

As part of the Celebrations for the first centenary of the birth of Mario Giacomelli, which will begin in 2025, the Mario Giacomelli Archive will propose a series of exhibitions, within a more complex and articulated program, to document the entire production of the great photographer. The first two major exhibitions will be those in Rome and Milan; the first in Rome at Palazzo delle Esposizioni, from April 17 to September 1, 2025, followed shortly after by the one at Palazzo Reale, in Milan, from May 24 to September 21, 2025, to continue with an exhibition calendar that will touch on various national and international venues to conclude in 2027.

The exhibition was produced as part of the Senigallia City of Photography project promoted by the Marche Region and was organized by the City of Senigallia and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Jesi.

Hours: Thursday through Sunday from 3 to 8 p.m.

Photos courtesy of Mario Giacomelli Archives © Eredi Giacomelli.

Senigallia dedicates an exhibition to Mario Giacomelli, opening celebrations for the centenary of his birth

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.