The women of Kabul as seen by Pino Settanni on display at the Cirulli Foundation in Bologna

On Friday, January 21, 2022, the Cirulli Foundation in Bologna opens the new year with the exhibition The Women of Kabul. In the gaze of photographer Pino Settanni, through May 23, 2022. The selection of photographs by Pino Settanni (Grottaglie, 1949) consists of 15 snapshots that are part of a larger photographic campaign that the Roman photographer took in 2002 when he was in Afghanistan on behalf of the Italian Army. The photographs, printed by Settanni in the historic studio on Via Ripetta, were digitally processed in 2003 and printed on Kodak Metal Process Lambda paper in a 50 x 70 cm format. The final effect is meant to be strongly evocative, and the pixels, used as sabers of color, dilate the female figures in space until they lose their boundaries and become one with the background. The photographer-artist thus overcomes visual realism and juxtaposes wind with digital graphic reworking; the female figures break down and recompose into new forms, and demand, as the author himself observes, “that the image be looked at carefully.”

At the center of the photographic research are women dressed in their traditional dress, the burqa, walking down the street in a daily context of guerrilla warfare and danger, caught up in the multiple activities. Wrapped in the long billowing dresses they are looked at with the aesthetically sublime eye of photographer Pino Settanni and transformed into almost angelic figures. The veil behind which the women’s faces are concealed, disheveled by the wind, becomes a metaphor for a difficult life, marked by sadness and the pain of severe renunciations.

On the occasion of the weekend of Artefiera 2022 and Art City Bologna, Fondazione Cirulli will be open to the public on Saturday, Jan. 22 and Sunday, Jan. 23 from 5 to 6:30 p.m. with a guided tour dedicated to the new exhibition section The Women of Kabul. In the gaze of photographer Pino Settanni. Reservations required (info@fondazionecirulli.org; entrance ticket + guided tour €16.00; for residents in the Municipality of San Lazzaro with ID €13.00) Fondazione Cirulli returns to open to the public in the usual mode of 2 weekends a month. You can see the calendar of openings on the website fondazionecirulli.org.

Pino Settanni was born in Grottaglie (Taranto) in 1949 and worked here as a worker in Italsider (llva), a job that allowed him to buy his first camera on installments, with which he took an extraordinary series of shots depicting southern Italy. His passion for photography prompted him to move, in 1973, to Rome. Two years later he met Monique Gregory, his partner, a gallery owner on Via del Babuino who introduced him to the world of artists, opening the way to success. In 1977 he met the painter Renato Guttuso with whom he formed an artistic association that lasted until 1983. Between 1998 and 2005 Settanni had the opportunity to travel to the Balkans and Afghanistan on behalf of the Italian army for which he made interesting war reportages. In the 1990s, after a brief stay in Paris, he returned permanently to Rome to the historic studio in Via Ripetta, which became a crossroads for actors, directors and artists. These frequentations gave rise to the Ritratti in nero project for the “Tarot”, “Zodiaco” and “Vizi Capitali” series, where characters from the world of show business are freely interpreted by Settanni. In 1995, the MEP ( Maison Europeenne de la Photographie) in Paris commissioned from him the “Alphabet of the French,” which became part of the museum’s collection. An artist as well as a photographer, Pino Settanni becomes fascinated by the possibility of manipulating images in post production, and the use of digital technology will characterize the work of his later years. He died in Rome in 2010 after completing his last work, the photographic book South Symbols, Looks written by Vittorio Sgarbi, which presents a collection of photographs taken between 1966 and 1980.

The Women of Kabul. In the Gaze of the Photographer Pino Settanni is part of the exhibition project The Animated Archive, a laboratory of twentieth-century history and culture that recounts the century of modernity through an exhibition kaleidoscope ranging from figurative arts to industrial design, from advertising to cinema, from photography to television, from textiles to magazines. The project, carried out with the advice and supervision of Jeffrey Schnapp, founder and director of Harvard University’s metaLAB and a leading figure in the field of digital humanities, builds a powerful and agile narrative of the short century through the diverse and heterogeneous materials that make up the Cirulli Foundation’s “overview” collection. The artistic masterpiece, decorative arts, communication, industrial design, and material and visual culture, as well as photographs, drawings, paintings, sculptures, objects, posters, correspondence, architectural projects, textiles, magazines, and books, are the forms of socio-cultural communication that make up the sections of the exhibition, weaving them into a polyphonic narrative on the twentieth century with more than 200 works.

Pictured: Pino Settanni, kabul (2002, computer processed in 2003; Kodak Metal Process Lambda paper, 50 x 70 cm)

The women of Kabul as seen by Pino Settanni on display at the Cirulli Foundation in Bologna

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.