What a wonderful trip! Bernard Plossu’s vision of Italy is now on display at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. From Piedmont to Sicily, he surveyed the entire country starting in the 1970s, following in the footsteps of his ancestors.
All of Italy fascinates him: the people in the street, the monuments, the landscapes, often when the skies are cloudy. “Bad weather is good weather for a photographer,” says Plossu. His Italy is strangely full and uninhabited, with architecture predominant and human presence more suggested than seen. This is a rich set of photographs where we see Plossu’s mastery of framing.
The first part shows Italy in black and white, both classical and very “Plossuienne.” The motorini and filth in the streets of Naples in 1987, the allure of women and the elegance of old men in Palermo in 2004, the Villa Giulia in Rome in 1980, the Church of Matera in 2011, busy businessmen in the streets of Milan in 2006, young fishermen in Lipari in 1988. The images reveal the soul of the city and setting with delicate, unforced touches: the identity of the figures, the shadows and light, the wind and the sea… And always with his sense of detail: a window propped open with a stone in Lipari, an open umbrella on a Roman paving stone. Then there are the landscapes, which the black and white endows with a velvety splendour: clouds floating over hills in Tuscany in 2009, plowed fields lined with poplar trees in Piedmont in 2013, and the island of Giglio shrouded in fog in 2001.
The second part is even better with its superb colors. The faded colors with blurred contrasts give the photographs the bygone look of old postcards, which clash with the contemporary subjects. Like the industrial buildings in the heart of Genoa, a shiny heeled shoe in a Milan café in 2008 and 2009, a hotel room in Livorno in 2014, a deserted piazza in Spilimbergo in 2008, the colorful houses on the island of Capraia in 2014.
The subtle story told by the photographer, that of a romantic Italy tinged with melancholy, will speak to any viewer with a transalpine soul. Plossu has often sought out the strange, a photograph that simply has to be taken. We see it in this long-term artistic voyage: a waking dream, a vision that marvels and collects, the suggestion of a presence or personal narrative, a relationship to a country that is both lived and fantasized, a lucky confrontation.
EXHIBITION
Italy by Bernard Plossu
Until April 5th, 2015
Maison Européenne de la Photographie
5/7 rue de Fourcy
75004 Paris
France
http://www.mep-fr.org
BOOK
Voyages italiens
Bernard Plossu
Editions Xavier Barral
Texts by Bernard Plossu, Francesco Zanot, Walter Guadagnini
190 x 240 mm
216 pages
120 photographies N&B et 50 couleur
ISBN : 978-2-36511-061-7
Prix : 39,50 € TTC
