After Franco Fontana's in 2024, this year's protagonist will be Joel meyerowitz (New York, 1938), who will be in Brescia on March 24th to inaugurate his first real anthology ever organized in Italy, set up at the Santa Giulia Museum, from March 25 to August 24, 2025The event is promoted by Municipality of Brescia e Brescia Museums FoundationIn partnership with Cavallerizza – Center of Italian PhotographyThe exhibition is curated by Denis Curti, promoted by the Brescia Musei Foundation, in collaboration with the Joel Meyerowitz Photography Archive of New York, the review presents over 90 images organized by thematic chapters.
From April 12th to June 8th 2025, the Giorgio Lotti and Maria Vittoria Backhaus exhibitions will be held
The first, Entitled Giorgio Lotti. Photographer of an EPOCH, edited by Renato Corsini and Laura Tenti, retraces the career of one of the best interpreters of photojournalism, thanks to his long collaboration with magazines such as Epoca, Paris Match and Stern. The exhibition, composed of about one hundred photographs both in black and white and in color, is divided into about ten sections that span the activity of Lotti's entire career, from the phenomenon of immigration to that of pollution, from the portraits of writers to those of actors, from the funeral of Padre Pio to that of Berlinguer, from the ten-year commitment in China to that of the Teatro della Scala in Milan.
The second, curated by Margherita Magnino and Carolina Zani, is dedicated to Maria Vittoria Backhaus, a pioneer of female photography. Her career, which began in 1964, was directed towards the world of publishing, collaborating with important magazines such as Illustrated Time, ABC e The world. The interest towards the still life and fashion photography was the next step and decreed the consecration of her style, made of irony and refined stories, of a notable aesthetic sense and revolutionary creativity. This exhibition intends to give a complete vision of the work of Maria Vittoria Backhaus, through one hundred photographs that retrace her artistic journey, from the first black and white shots linked to reportage and fashion to the introduction of color and digital. The themes addressed range from the Milan of the sixties to the circus, from dog competitions to photo novels, to portraits of famous people such as Caterina Caselli and Carla Fracci. And then again the fashion, the jewels, the collages with votive statuettes, demonstrating the extraordinary versatility and constant desire for experimentation that characterized his work.
Red Brass and his artistic and personal story, will be at the centre of the exhibition So much about Tinto. Tinto Brass's Eros in the Photographs of Gianfranco Salis, edited by Renato Corsini and Caterina Varzi (13 June – 7 September 2025) which, through the photographs taken by Gianfranco Salis, a privileged scene photographer and punctual presence in the backstage, documents the artistic journey of someone who is considered an authentic protagonist of Italian cinema.
From 13 June to 7 September 2025, the Cavallerizza will host Sandy Skoglund's solo exhibition, entitled In Wonderland
And it is organized in collaboration with Paci Contemporary (Brescia-Porto Cervo, IT).
Sandy Skoglund, one of the major exponents of the Staged Photography, is famous for the settings of a surreal universe in which objects, architecture and extras come together under her careful direction. The exhibition is composed of around seventy large and medium format photographs, ranging from early projects such as American vacation motel cabins (1974) and Reflections in a mobile home (1977) to the most famous works of staged photography of the 90s, up to his latest work Winter (2008)
Among the novelties of the Brescia Photo Festival 2025 is the opening of the exhibition venue “Cavallerizza – Centro della fotografia italiana”.
The space is intended as a cultural hub available to the entire community, especially the younger generations, where exhibitions, photography workshops and cultural activities can be organised, aimed at enhancing and promoting photographic art, specifically Italian photography. The “Antonio Amaduzzi” library, one of the most important collections in Italy completely dedicated to photographic publishing, with more than 3.000 books, catalogues and series that tell the story, the paths and the protagonists of this form of expression, will also be made available and consultable in the building on via Cairoli.
Numerous collateral initiatives
On Tuesday 25 March 2025, at 18.00:4 pm, at the Auditorium of the Santa Giulia Museum (via Piamarta XNUMX), a meeting-dialogue will be held between Joel Meyerowitz and Denis Curti, at the end of which the American photographer will sign copies of the catalogue (Skira). While the Brescia Museums Foundation presents to the New Eden Cinema, the arthouse managed by the Brescia institution, a film festival to explore, through the language of the seventh art, themes related to photography, identity and memory.
The program offers four documentaries
It starts on Tuesday 25th March with the first vision of Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other, directed by Manon Ouimet and Jacob Perlmutter, dedicated to the relationship between Joel Meyerowitz and his wife Maggie Barrett, therefore, Wednesday April 9, Guido Harari – Stray Looks by Daniele Cini, will retrace the career of one of the greatest Italian photographers; on Wednesday 23 April, the film will be screened The Tirana Plot by Manfredi Lucibello, the ironic tale of one of the greatest hoaxes in the history of contemporary art, starring, among others, Oliviero Toscani. The cycle ends on Wednesday 7st May, with I Am Martin Parr by Lee Shulman, a portrait of the great British director.
On the cover: Joel Meyerowitz, New York City, 1963; ©Joel Meyerowitz
