The PhotoVogue Festival is back at BASE Milan. This 9th edition focuses on the resilience, interconnectedness and beauty of the natural world, addressing global challenges related to the environment and sustainability at the same time. Hence the title: The Tree of Life: A Love Letter to Nature, is appropriate given that this is the first festival dedicated to conscious fashion photography. It runs from 6 to 9 March, but some of the events presented at the PhotoVogue Festival 2025 will continue.
The Festival offers a wide range of proposals and projects: exhibitions, panels, presentations and digital showcases. Also, it is an opportunity to engage with a global community of artists, thought leaders, and organizations committed to environmental stewardship and sustainability. It invites people on a visual journey into our kinship with nature, offering new ways to interact with and reimagine our relationship with the planet. “This edition of the PhotoVogue Festival aims to promote a deeper understanding of our connection to all living things and to inspire collective action to protect our common home. Art has the power to inspire meaningful change”, Alessia Glaviano, Head of Global PhotoVogue and Director del Festival explains.
The PhotoVogue Festival (co-curated by Caterina De Biasio, Visual Editor PhotoVogue, and Daniel Rodríguez Gordillo, Content Operations and Strategy Manager Condé Nast, and organised under the patronage of the Comune di Milano) has, since its inception, anticipated highly topical issues, including the pervasive influence of images on our understanding of the world, the evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its ethical implications in creating images.
In addition to a rich programme of talks, the PhotoVogue Festival presents some very interesting exhibitions, including The Tree of Life: A Love Letter to Nature, which showcases the works of the artists selected from the global open call. It shows both the fragility and the beauty of our Planet and offers a reflection on the present and the possible paths towards a fairer future, thanks to the works by 45 artists. Also on show are Latin America Panorama, In Vogue with Nature (a digital exhibition featuring iconic Vogue covers celebrating the relationship between fashion and nature), Seeds of Knowledge, The Tree of Change (a series of slideshows, videos and contributions from organisations dedicated to environmental advocacy).
The PhotoVogue Festival is complemented by satellite events in the city’s finest galleries. Among the events taking place in Milan during and after the PhotoVogue Festival, there is Ron Galella: bellezza per sempre (Ron Galella: Beauty Forever). The exhibition, presented on this occasion, will be open until March 30.
Described by Andy Warhol as his “favourite photographer”, Ron Galella is one of the most-known celebrity paparazzi: in his career spanning almost six decades, he has immortalised iconic personalities (actors, TV and music stars, fashion icons, as well as political figures, artists and innovators) in his candid shots. The exhibition, curated by Francesca Alfano Miglietti and organised in collaboration with the Alberto Damian Gallery in Treviso, the Metronom Gallery in Modena and Sime Books, which has published the Italian translation of Ron Galella’s latest book, features over 70 photographs.
Today, decades after they were taken, his photographs, such as that of Windblown Jackie or of John Lennon and Mick Jagger at an American Film Institute gala in Los Angeles in 1974, are as relevant as they are historic. Galella’s photos also sometimes had a harsh pay-off, including beatings by celebrity bodyguards and legal battles, such as those with Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
His career started as a photographer for the US Air Force and continued with a degree in photojournalism. He has published over 25 books, the latest being ‘100 Iconic Photographs – A Retrospective by Ron Galella’. (Sime Books). His unique shooting style, pre-focusing the (and taping it) at 2 metres, setting the diaphragm at f/8 or f/11 and looking at the subject rather than into the viewfinder, ensured an interaction with the subject that created a particular intimacy.
Paola Sammartano
PhotoVogue Festival
From March 6 to March 9, 2025
BASE Milano
via Bergognone 34
20144 Milano
Italy
www.photovogue.com
Ron Galella: bellezza per sempre
From March 8 to March 30, 2025
Nonostante Marras
via Cola di Rienzo 8
20144 Milano
Italy
www.antoniomarras.com
