More than seventy large-format photographs from thirty countries (which Mario Testino has visited over the last seven years): this is how A Beautiful World takes shape. A world that Testino has captured and analysed by taking his subjects out of their environment and bringing them to his portable studio from where their membership in a community becomes evident thanks to the clothes they wear, those of their own history. Testino’s project, in its worldwide premiere, is on show in Rome until 25 August.
In A Beautiful World, we find the synthesis of a seven-year project, in which Testino has been exploring other photography than fashion and portraiture, genres in which he is undoubtedly a leading actor, to focus on an extraordinary variety of traditional though innovative clothes and costumes, worn with pride by people who preserve and pass on their traditions, because traditional dress is an essential symbol that brings to light the most intimate characteristics of a people. On the stage of Testino’s world, then, it’s not the new on display, but what we have forgotten: what we were.
“In my travels, I realized that when a country loses the bond between its history and its traditional dress, something truly precious is lost”, explains Testino, who focuses on a decontextualised dress to enhance the concentration of that ‘second skin’, that envelops us all, starting with his subjects.
The exhibition, which runs along a thematic itinerary, is, therefore, a journey from Peru to Colombia, Japan, Myanmar, Mongolia, Kenya and other countries to reveal, through the reading and analysis of traditional customs, the attitudes of the various peoples, sometimes revealing their similarities and in other cases their contrasts.
Like the photographers/travellers of yesteryear, Testino, thanks to his portable studio, has in fact succeeded in highlighting in the poses of his subjects, the Men of the Maasai or the Three Women of the Thari (Pakistan), how traditional clothing reveals an almost unconscious attachment to the signs of their origins.
Indeed, Testino was inspired by portraits of Peruvian women in traditional dress taken by Peruvian photographer Martin Chambi Jimenez in the early 20th century. However, Testino revisited the subject to document the richness and evolution of Peru’s costume traditions. The project continued with the idea of capturing the extraordinary richness of an ever-evolving dress culture alongside an emerging trend of homologation, that is erasing identities.
Testino responds to this conformism by seeking out, wherever he goes, original and unchanging clothes and costumes that describe a role, an identity of belonging, highlighted by visual clues: a headdress, a particular cut of a costume/dress, associated with a ritual, a festival, a place or a custom.
Meticulously planned, his photographs have a nonchalance and elegance that has redefined informality in fashion imagery. Testino has applied the same attitude to his personal exploration of the cultural identities of the countries in which he has photographed the new collections. He has drawn from it an interpretation of the symbols and what unites and differentiates cultures, highlighting the complexities and contrasts of our multiple ways of belonging.
And this was achieved, as Testino explains, by “transferring the emotion of a close and intimate encounter with the subject into the photograph I was taking, because the eyes of the modern world, which have become obsessed with getting as close as possible to their heroes, wanted to feel that they were literally able to reach out and touch the moment in the images”.
The exhibition, curated by Patrick Kinmonth, is housed in Palazzo Bonaparte, an architectural jewel that belonged to Napoleon’s family.
Under the patronage of the Municipality of Rome, Mario Testino. A Beautiful World is produced and organized by Arthemisia in collaboration with Domus Artium Reserve. A Beautiful World supports the mission of The Great Balance by promoting cultural heritage understanding.
Paola Sammartano
Mario Testino. A Beatiful World
May 25 to August 25, 2024
Palazzo Bonaparte
Piazza Venezia 5
00187 Roma
Italy
https://www.mostrepalazzobonaparte.it/
