Don't call me master: fifty iconic shots of Ferdinando Scianna in Milan

Until January 22, 2022, the exhibition Non chiamatemi maestro by Ferdinando Scianna (Bagheria, 1943), the first Italian to be admitted to the Magnum agency in 1982, is on view in Milan at STILL Fotografia.

Curated by Fabio Achilli and Denis Curti, the exhibition showcases fifty photographs that recount, through many of his most iconic shots, the career of the artist, who is also known for his narrative expertise and skill in aphorism. The shots on display include travels to Spain, Latin America, New York, Paris and his beloved Sicily. Sicily wonderfully embodied by model Marpessa Hennink, the protagonist of the Dolce and Gabbana catalog taken on the island, which led him to discover a theatrical staging vein, which, however, flowed from reality, from the street.

There are many personalities who have dedicated a thought to his work, starting with Goffredo Fofi, who in the text of the catalog of the exhibition curated by Denis Curti, Paola Bergna and Alberto Bianda Ferdinando Scianna - Viaggio Racconto Memoria (Marsilio, 2018) writes: “Scianna’s photographic work makes him think of Hemingway and clearly of Sciascia, his mentor and exhortor.”

Scianna has received numerous major international awards; has published more than sixty volumes; and has worked in reportage, portraiture, fashion, and advertising. He writes about photographic criticism and communication; in recent years he has been practicing a hybrid, cross-media literature on text/image dialogue.

“My job is to make photographs, and photographs cannot represent metaphors. Photographs show, not prove,” Scianna says. A phrase that finds immediate correspondence in one of his best-known photographs featured in the exhibition, taken in Beirut in 1976 during the Lebanese civil war, where a Maronite Christian fighter harnesses, in a shooting position, a Colt M16 automatic rifle; on the stock an oval decal of Our Lady.

The celebrated photographer’s long artistic journey winds through themes such as war, fragments of travel, mystical experiences, and popular religiosity, linked by a single thread: the constant search for form in the chaos of life.

For more info: www.stillfotografia.it

Hours: Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Thursday 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Saturday 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Image: Ferdinando Scianna, Spain, detail (1984). Ph.Credit Ferdinando Scianna. Courtesy Still Photography.

Don't call me master: fifty iconic shots of Ferdinando Scianna in Milan

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