The Italien Cultural institute of Paris is presenting until 30 January 2026 the exhibition L’instant infini. Portraits by Lia Pasqualino, a concerned photographer and student of Letizia Battaglia. She writes:
I have realised that, without meaning to, when I photograph I come face to face with the emotional landscape I knew as a child.
I look for moments in which, in a chance combination of elements, one can glimpse a certain inner reflection.
The goose in Piazza Magione appeared before me one afternoon, many years ago, but I think that in reality it emerged from the storehouse of images of Palermo buried within me.
Even in portraits I wait for the inner gaze of the person in front of me to reveal itself.
It happened with Jeanne Moreau, with Emir Kusturica, with Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, with Anna Mouglalis, and with so many people whose names I do not know, encountered in the street or in a psychiatric hospital.
I draw on the evanescent storeroom hidden inside me, yet I know how to wait patiently for the moment when, in the subject before me, a silent dialogue with themselves appears.
I think I have always done that: sought in others that particular tone of gaze turned more inward than outward.
And I have made it my unit of measure of what is human.
Lia Pasqualino
Lia Pasqualino : L’instant infini. Portraits
Until 30 January 2026
Institut culturel italien
Hôtel de Galliffet
50 rue de Varenne
75007 Paris – Free admission
CATALOGUE
Texts by: Antonio Calbi, Giovanna Calvenzi, Gabriel Bauret, Roberto Andò, Ferdinando Scianna, Tommaso Montanari.
Dario Cimorelli editore, 2025.
