The exhibition of Gian Paolo Minelli’s photographs and videos at the Museo Civico Villa Dei Cedri in Bellinzona, Switzerland combines three series by the Swiss photographer, who has lived in Argentina for more than a decade. Each series was taken in a different country and socio-cultural context. Beyond their formal coherence, each series shares themes explored in the rest of Minelli’s work: the margins of society, abandoned places (either physically or politically), and groups of people forgotten because they no longer fit in with our model of society.
“The three series on display at the Villa Dei Cedri could be united under the title, Il nemico è l’età,” Minelli explains, “because in these three situations, age is the enemy: certainly for the elderly, but also for the decrepit buildings of the Cité Desnos and the Piedrabuena neighborhood, and for the drug addicts in Paco, for whom every passing day threatens even deeper addiction and, if they keep up the habit, inevitable death.”
Far from being documentary, the photography of Gian Paolo Minelli is undeniably social. Sensitive and attentive to the world around him, the photographer strives to blur the boundaries between genres. Having long worked to promote the arts among the youth of the Piedrabuena neighborhood with his “cultural hangar,” Minelli mixes social and artistic work, revealing a neglected universe while casting his artistic eye upon it. Whether his subject is architectural or human, he captures the light and ambiance with delicacy, conjuring the memories of people and places in a space of exchange and dialogue.
Catherine Tanazacq de Stigliano
Gian Paolo Minelli
Il nemico è l’età
Until February 12, 2012
Museo Civico Villa Dei Cedri
piazza San Biagio 9
6500 Bellinzona
Switzerland
+ 41 (0)91 821 85 20
