Women photographers of yesterday and today in a major exhibition at Villa Bardini and Forte di Belvedere

From June 18 to Oct. 2, 2022, Villa Bardini and Forte di Belvedere in Florence will host the major exhibition Fotografe!, curated by Emanuela Sesti and Walter Guadagnini, promoted by the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia and the Fondazione CR Firenze, in collaboration with the City of Florence. An exhibition project dedicated to the female photographers of yesterday and today that winds its way through the halls of the two venues, juxtaposing original works from the Alinari Archives with contemporary productions.

Starting from the outcomes of the research in the Alinari Archives, the exhibition project intends to give life to an itinerary that proposes in a synchronic way a history that from the photography of the origins crosses the twentieth century and reaches the present day, placing side by side the first photographic procedures with contemporary experimentation. The exhibition does not follow a chronological course, but is constructed by analogies, differences, suggestions, themes and genres, first and foremost the photographic portrait, bringing together in a single path photographs and female photographers born in different eras, places and social contexts. The objective is not only the search for a specific female gaze, but the identification of the centrality of certain personalities, often underestimated, in the development of photographic research from its origins. The presence of contemporary female authors constitutes a further reflection involving today’s artistic practices, starting from the relationship with the past and memory.

On display are vintage prints, albums and negatives from the Alinari Archives, works from the different collections of more than forty female photographers, in many cases unpublished, starting with those of the first daguerreotypists of the 1840s, such as the French Bernardine Caroline Théodora Hirza Lejeune (Paris, 1824-1895) from the Unique Objects fund, which was restored, catalogued and digitized in 2021 also thanks to the support of the Fondazione CR Firenze. Original prints by Julia Margaret Cameron, Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Lucia Moholy, Maria Mulas, Ketty La Rocca, Lisetta Carmi, Diane Arbus, and Bettina Rheims, to name but a few, will be confronted with the productions of ten Italian female authors (Eleonora Agostini, Arianna Arcara, Federica Belli, Marina Caneve, Francesca Catastini, Myriam Meloni, Giulia Parlato, Roselena Ramistella, Sofia Uslenghi, Alba Zari), representatives of the younger generation, born after 1980, present with works that interact with the Alinari historical heritage. The authors trigger an ideal dialogue with historical photographs and with the archive itself, also proposing new keys to interpreting images from even the distant past. Thanks to Calliope Arts, the exhibition is enriched by two sections devoted to funds from the Alinari Archives: that of sisters Wanda Wulz (Trieste, 1903-1984) and Marion Wulz (Trieste, 1905-1990) and that of Edith Arnaldi (Vienna, 1884 - Rome, 1978), best known as a writer and artist of the Futurist area under the pseudonym Rosa Rosà. From these archives are taken unpublished works, some printed directly from the original negatives, which return to the public the results of a first reconnaissance on hitherto less explored materials from these archival nuclei. On the one hand, the Wulz fund (known for the international renown of Wanda’s Futurist works, including the creation of the famous overprint Io+gatto), of which negatives will also be exhibited at Villa Bardini; on the other hand, at Forte Belvedere, an archive completely to be explored, essentially an unpublished one, which will allow, also thanks to the research of art historian Lisa Hanstein, to rediscover the photographic production of Edith Arnaldi, characterized by portraits and travel photographs taken in Italy, Europe and Africa, and by the portraits executed in her Roman studio.

Dialogues with the artists in the exhibition, guided tours and workshops for children and families will be organized. The exhibition sees the collaboration of MUS.E and the Fondazione Parchi Monumentali Bardini e Peyron, and the contribution of Unicoop Firenze.

For info: https://www.villabardini.it

Women photographers of yesterday and today in a major exhibition at Villa Bardini and Forte di Belvedere

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