Photolux is the new international photography festival in Lucca. It takes its name from light, which as the very essence of photography, is the symbol of this project organized by the Photolux Cultural Association under the artistic direction of Enrico Stefanelli.
The 2013 edition of the Photolux Festival (23 from November to December 15 2013) will be the edition of the city. Born from the desire to pay homage to the recently deceased Gabriele Basilico, whose rigorous visions of the urban landscape and architecture set the standard, the theme, Urbis, is centered precisely on the urban visions of the great photographers.
City is a broad concept that encompasses not only the diversity and complexity of each individual city, but also those of the various cities in the world, from the small provincial town to the large metropolis.
Today it represents above all the space that we inhabit most densely and numerously: the world population is now almost predominantly a population of citizens.
Precisely for this reason it is a plural, varied, stratified place, articulated on various levels that intertwine: historical, architectural, social and human.
Precisely the ontological plurality and density of urban spaces mean that the city is no longer just an environment to be portrayed, but rather a text, increasingly complex over time, of which it is possible to give multiple interpretations.
By constitution it has always represented a center of infinite photographic possibilities, both thematically and stylistically or compositionally, and has always been a subject particularly loved by photographers.
Of some of them, such as Paris or New York, so many photographs were taken that they alone form a fundamental chapter in the history of photographic language.
Our review does not intend to offer an exhaustive view of the city-photography relationship, but rather to bring various examples that partially exemplify the variety and diversity of the works that have been produced in relation to this space.
The city we see in the photographs on display is not only documented but imagined, reworked, interpreted, presented in ways that are usually difficult to see.
Thanks to these works it becomes clear that it is no longer just a container, a space to fill, but has a life of its own and has in turn become an active agent that influences those who inhabit it and modifies their ways and habits: reciprocal is, in fact , the relationship of influence that is established between urban space and man – the man who shapes the space and in turn the space that shapes those who live in it.
The exhibitions of the Photolux Festival 2013:
“The Places We Live”. A complex and extensive project by the young photographer Jonas Bendiksen of the Magnum agency which aims to present the living conditions in poor neighborhoods in different cities of the world thus also showing us the harsher aspects of urbanization and the development of urban spaces which in some cases means the immeasurable and disordered growth of the favelas and slums.
At Royal College.
“Nightscapes”. This retrospective aims to show how the way in which the author Luca Campigotto looks at the city has evolved, from the first black and white shots of "Venetia Obscura" to his latest color work, "Gotham City".
At the Doge's Palace.
“Sitting on the Wall: Haikou”. The project was created in the city of Haikou, where Weng Fen lives, and deals with the theme of the modernization and urbanization process that began in China in the XNUMXs. The young girls portrayed from behind look at this future which is radically transforming not only the landscape, but also its inhabitants, and seem suspended waiting to understand what China of tomorrow will become.
At Palazzo Guinigi.
"Paris". The exhibition is a preview of the latest work created by Maurizio Galimberti and dedicated to the city of Paris. As always in the form of instant film, a selection of the most significant shots taken and reported in the various technical methods that the artist prefers will be presented: mosaics, single polaroids, ready-mades and impossibles.
At the building of the Banca del Monte di Lucca Foundation.
"The Invisible City". Irene Kung took these shots in various cities around the world: they are all metropolitan realities that the author has observed and transformed, making them places detached not only from the urban fabric that surrounds them, but also from time. The monuments immortalized by the photographer, while recognizable, thus seem immersed in an indefinite and suspended atmosphere.
At Palazzo Guinigi.
“Taking My Time”. Thanks to the collaboration between the Photolux Festival and Cortona On The Move – Travel Photography, a part of the retrospective dedicated to Joel Meyerowitz will be exhibited in Lucca, the one dedicated to his urban visions.
At Royal College.
“Reconstruction.” Boris Mikahilov's exhibition will consist of photos from two different series At Dust and Promzona taken almost 20 years apart from each other. Despite the time gap, the two projects share the theme they address, namely the importance of the past in building today's image.
At Villa Bottini.
"Meadowlands". The title of the project refers to a region and a place – a sports and amusement park in New Jersey, northwest New York, near the Hackensack River. By portraying these places and their inhabitants, Gergely Szatmári intends to address the themes of superficiality, inertia and its results: frustration, depression, resignation, renunciation and total passivity.
At Palazzo Guinigi.
New York Sleeps. Everyone knows New York as "the city that never sleeps", but Christopher Thomas with his photographs tried to overcome the noise that constantly hangs over it to capture the essence of its structure. The images tell us about a New York at night, silent and above all deserted.
At the building of the Banca del Monte di Lucca Foundation.
“SYL – Support Your Locals”. The project was created by Lorenzo Tricoli in collaboration with micamera and is dedicated to the Isola district of Milan, subject in recent years to an intense process of gentrification that has transformed its urban and social fabric.
At Royal College.
Winners of the Roberto Del Carlo Photolux Contest 2013. The winner of the Open category and the selected winners in the PhotoVogue category will be on display together with the great authors of the Festival.
At Real Collegio and Palazzo Ducale.
“City Coasts”. In the human communities photographed by Massimo Vitali there are specific types of social customs to be observed in some of their characteristic configurations. The instincts that Vitali sees in his subjects may be our greatest resource and resilience; however, they could also be the real reason for today's lack and loss.
Because conforming to the world also means allowing the world to conform us.
At the Doge's Palace.
“World Press Photo 2013”. The World Press Photo traveling exhibition brings together the winning photographs of the latest edition of the competition.
At the Church of the Servants.
“Lucca City of Walls”. The exhibition created by the Lucchese Photographic Archive, which aims to celebrate the XNUMXth anniversary of the city's symbolic monument with photos by five Tuscan authors from different eras.
At Villa Bottini.
"Corvial". Andrea Boccalini for Leica Camera Italy. Through his reportage documenting the reality of the Corviale, a skyscraper-village located in Rome, he wants to show us how urban, political and institutional decay does not necessarily correspond to human decay.
At Royal College.
Info: www.photoluxfestival.it
