Since the beginning of his career, in 1979, in parallel with the reportages he made for numerous Venetian photographic agencies and institutions, Graziano Arici has pursued a personal production, which is now being presented for the first time in Italy, at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, after the great success in Arles, with the exhibition at the Réattu museum in 2021.
Graziano Arici. Oltre Venezia. ‘Now is the Winter of our Discontent’ presents a selection of over 400 photographs in 9 series, taken between 1979 and 2020. The video documentary ‘Recycling Graziano. Une lecture possible des images de Graziano Arici’ produced in 2015 by Sébastien Spicher, a young video maker, introduces the visitor to the exhibition. Advocating the approach of the American photographer Walker Evans (1903-1975), who favoured instantaneous photography, made up of ‘poor’ subjects, a social, ‘vernacular’ photography, Arici takes this historical photography and applies to it the technologies in use in the 21st century (mobile phone, scanner, digital SLR), particularly in his black and white series. In this this way he gives life to works that, beyond representation, for their rigorous composition, his study of light and contrasts, make him the natural heir of the American photographer. The artist takes a sometimes ironic (in the Caarnival series), often harsh or even concerned look at the state of the world (The State of Things, Lost Objects, Heart of Darkness), without complacency (Le Grand Tour), highlighting the aesthetic aspect of the images (Angels, Polaroids, The Winter of our Discontent). He revisits the past, his own past (Als das Kind Kind war), but also his own production, reworking his images, in some cases taken decades earlier, to give them a new meaning within a series. The technique of “salvaging” allows him to carry out a work of collecting images (glass photographic plates, old negatives, images broadcast on television) that he transforms in works of his own (Angels, The Winter of our Discontent, Heart of Darkness).
This exhibition project extends the initial project presented in Arles and also pays homage to the city of Venice through the previous works of this great contemporary photographer. Graziano Arici’s images of Venice and the personalities that have made it famous from 1971 to the present day are displayed through three videos that bring together and show the public, in different locations in the Palazzo, a wide selection of shots: Veneland, (2010), a normal day in Venice, from dawn to dusk, in October 2010; Loop (2022), a vision of 40 years of photography; Vedova, (1985, 2009), in which the photographer shoots Emilio Vedova in his studio during the creation of a work, the only testimony of the artist while he is painting.
After decades of working for famous press agencies, with this exhibition project Graziano Arici emerges as a great photographer. The exhibitions at the Réattu museum in Arles in 2021 and at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia today are not retrospectives, but starting points, bringing a work and an artist to light. “The Fondazione has since a long time started a path of enhancing the value of its collections through different approaches for visitors, creating new accessibility projects to improve the learning experience. The exhibition and the activities connected to it are part of this path and aim to increase the accessibility of the works through the use of participatory and inclusive methods that capture the public’s attention and allow access to information”- Marigusta Lazzari, Director of the Querini Stampalia, underlines - “This exhibition project once again emphasises the Fondazione’s role as a living archive of the city, on this occasion through the medium of photography, both artistic and documentary photography, a means of analysing the social, cultural and economic transformations of a territory, a pretext for further reflection on the cultural heritage as a vehicle for the growth of citizens”.
