Biba Giacchetti's curatorial approach represents the most original element of the entire project. After over thirty years of collaboration and friendship with Erwitt, the curator has crafted a narrative that avoids the temptation of monumental celebration, favoring an intimate, almost confidential narrative. Visitors encounter not only the photographer of iconic images that have become part of the history of photography, but also his father, his husband, his friend, his traveler, the man who observed the world before photographing it. It is precisely this perspective that distinguishes the exhibition from many others dedicated to the great masters of photography. The focus is not solely on the aesthetics of the image or the documentary importance of the works, but on the human process that generated them. The photographs become pages of an existential diary. Even the most famous shots are returned to their original context, revealing how behind every seemingly perfect image lies a fragment of life lived. This choice restores depth to Erwitt's work and invites viewers to reread photographs they thought they already knew.
The curatorial project
The curatorial project's intelligence lies precisely in breaking down the boundary between private and public photography. The approximately one hundred photographs on display combine historical reportage, portraits of major twentieth-century figures, family moments, street scenes, and images from the artist's private collection, many of which have never been shown publicly before. The result is not a simple chronological catalogue, but a continuous narrative in which history and everyday life interact seamlessly. This approach allows us to understand a fundamental aspect of Erwitt's poetics: his irony is never a stylistic exercise, but a form of knowledge. Melancholy and laughter, tenderness and distance, lightness and awareness coexist in his photographs. Indeed, it is the artist himself who suggested the key to understanding the entire exhibition: "But aren't melancholy and irony two sides of the same coin?" A phrase that almost becomes the exhibition's poetic manifesto.
The section dedicated to the relationship with Italy is particularly significant.
Erwitt, born in Paris but raised in Milan for the first time, was forced to leave Italy due to the Fascist racial laws. Yet that separation never severed his connection to Italy, which remained a sort of sentimental homeland throughout his life. The exhibition sensitively explores this relationship, demonstrating how Italian memory continued to permeate his gaze well beyond his emigration to the United States. The exhibition context also contributes to the initiative's value. The Museo Civico Archeologico of Bologna confirms its interdisciplinary vocation by hosting a project that brings archaeology, photography, and cultural memory into dialogue. This choice underscores how every authentic work of art, regardless of its era, is first and foremost a testimony to the human experience.
But the greatest merit of the exhibition is perhaps another. In an age in which the image is consumed with increasing speed, The art of observing He invites us to rediscover the value of a slow gaze. Erwitt doesn't photograph the exceptional; he photographs what everyone sees without realizing it. His lens doesn't seek spectacle, but the truth hidden in small gestures, coincidences, and the involuntary ironies of everyday life. It's a photography that doesn't claim to explain the world, but to suddenly make it comprehensible. In this sense, the exhibition also takes on a profoundly contemporary meaning. It reminds us that observation is an ethical act even before an aesthetic one. It means giving reality time, suspending judgment, accepting the complexity of people. Erwitt's photographs continue to speak to us because they never seek effect, but essence. We leave the exhibition with the feeling of having encountered not only a great photographer, but a man capable of transforming the ordinary into a form of civil poetry. And this is perhaps the most precious lesson Elliott Erwitt still teaches us today: beauty is not born from the exceptional, but from the ability to look at the ordinary with an extraordinarily human gaze.
Cover photo: Elliott Erwitt, New York City, 1974 © Elliott Erwitt
