“Ferdinando can’t help it, he has centuries of finesse and culture behind him; helping him avoid the extreme visceral delirium of speed – he has time without really having to be of his time,” said Henri Cartier-Bresson one day. “In his little box, he accumulates his profound world experience, to keep the ability of continuing with a calm passion.” Endorsed by his friend and mentor, full member of Magnum since 1989, Ferdinando Scianna (born 1943, in Bagheria, Sicily) does not, however, enjoy the recognition he has earned. This is, no doubt, partially due to his discretion and to his keeping outside of currents and trends. His work, in the great tradition of human documentary, is still essential, rich in photographs that, from now on, are seen as “classics”.
Paradoxically, he owes a significant part of his reputation to this sort of digression in his career. While he devoted himself to reporting (mainly for the magazine L’Europeo) and to portraits of artists and writers, two Italian fashion designers asked him in the middle of the 1980s to provide an image for their brand, Dolce e Gabbana. The scope of the work went off the beaten path and was in line with Ferdinando Scianna’s usual style. He was essentially photographing a model in situations close to everyday life, the sets being the streets, houses (sometimes palaces) of Sicilian cities and villages, sometimes in the middle of the local population. The photographer had the choice between two young women to embody the “eternal Sicilian”. He chose Marpessa, a young, hauntingly beautiful Dutch woman. The result was such a success that, for a long time, Marpessa and the photographs taken by Scianna would not be able to be disassociated from the brand’s image.
Thirty years later, the series has not lost any of its impact or topicality. Other than these fashion photographs, this exhibition at Box Galerie in Brussels, Belgium is also offering, as a counterpoint, excerpts from the essay that Ferdinando Scianna, just barely out of his teens, dedicated to religious Sicilian gatherings. It was a work that was noticed by Leonardo Sciascia and that, after a publication that attracted a lot of attention in 1965, made the young man choose to become a photographer. Though a man of images, Scianna is also a man of words, as is proven in his writings and his unwavering love for literature. “I don’t claim – I no longer claim – to change the world with my photographs,” stated Scianna. “I persist in believing, however, that bad photographs make it worse. For me, photographing Sicily is almost a verbal redundancy. I started photographing around the age of seventeen, and Sicily was there. I started photographing because Sicily was there. In order to understand it and to try to understand through photographs, perhaps, what it means to be Sicilian.”
Ferdinando Scianna, Marpessa – Moda – Sicilia
From March 23 through May 6, 2017
Box Galerie
102 chaussée de Vleurgat
1050 Bruxelles
Belgique
