From fashion to current events. And return. Gian Paolo Barbieri (Milan, 1938), one of the most important Italian masters of the image, lays bare. Retracing his extraordinary career in dialogue with Maurizio Rebuzzini, during a new appointment with the Lectio Magistralis promoted by AFIP International - Association of Professional Italian Photographers, scheduled at the Milan Triennale on Thursday 2 July, at 19 pm.
"The mission of photography is to explain man to man": this according to Rebuzzini is the creed of Barbieri, one of the first professionals who chose to devote himself so profoundly to the sphere of fashion and lifestyle, contributing decisively to to consecrate the concept of made in Italy on an international scale. As evidenced by the iconographic success of the famous portrait of a barely twenty-year-old Benedetta Barzini, entrusted to the cover of the first legendary issue of Vogue Italia; and as confirmed by the award-winning campaigns for Valentino, Gianfranco Ferré, Dolce&Gabbana, Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace.
Starting in the XNUMXs, Barbieri clearly changed his tune, proposing an unprecedented series of travel reports from tropical paradises (Seychelles, Madagascar, Tahiti, Polynesia): squaring the circle for an artist who has always followed the dream of total beauty.
The Lectio Magistralis of AFIP International, all with free admission (subject to availability), will close on Thursday 16 July with Giovanni Gastel and Giuseppe Di Piazza (theme of the meeting: The rebirth of photography).
The Lectio magistralis initiative on photography and its surroundings is promoted by AFIP International and CNA Professioni, carried out in collaboration with the Milan Triennale, the Maxxi – National Museum of XII Century Arts in Rome, GRIN (National Iconographic Editors Group), Milano Photofestival and with contributions from Epson, Canon, Nikon.
AFIP was founded in 1960 by a group of photographers and sees among the first associates Aldo Ballo, Davide Clari, Giancolombo, Mario Dainesi, Gianni Della Valle, Luciano Ferri, Gian Greguoli, Edoardo Mari, Paolo Monti, Alfredo Pratelli, Italo Pozzi, Gian Sinigaglia, Fedele Toscani and Roberto Zabban, with the aim of technically and culturally renewing the profession of photography, defending the free profession, addressing above all industrial and advertising production, fashion and publishing.
The new board of AFIP International is made up of Giovanni Gastel (president), Alfredo Pratelli (honorary president), Giuseppe Biancofiore (vice president), Andreas Ikonomu (secretary), Sauro Sorana (treasurer), Antonio Mecca (spokesperson), Debora Barnaba, Silvia Bottino, Gianluca Cisternino, Roberto Ghislandi, Annalisa Mazzoli, Marirosa Toscani Ballo, Giovanni Mereghetti.
Biographical notes
Gianpaolo Barbieri (Milan, 1938). He dedicated himself very young, in post-war Milan, to the theater: approaching the world of cinema from here. He gets an extra part in Luchino Visconti's Medea, before letting himself be fascinated by the lights of the "dolce vita" and moving to Rome. It was here that he took his first steps into the world of photography, proposing himself as a portraitist for aspiring actors and actresses: an activity that did not go unnoticed and earned him, after a short but intense stay in Paris, the opportunity to return to Milan and start his own fashion photographer studio. He made his debut in 1963 in "Novità", the magazine that in 1966 would become "Vogue Italia". In 1968 he won the Biancamano Award as the best Italian photographer and the weekly "Stern" included him among the fourteen best fashion photographers on the international scene.
From this moment he began to collaborate with Condè Nast, publishing from 1973 also on "Vogue Paris", and arriving to collaborate with the symbolic signatures of Italian fashion: Valentino, Versace, Ferré, Armani. In the XNUMXs he also began working on travel reportage, signing a series of works chosen by David Bailey for exhibitions at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and at the Kunstforum in Vienna.
Maurizio Rebuzzini he has been dealing with photography for sector magazines since 1972. He is editor and director of FOTOgraphia, a monthly photographic reflection (since May 1994), and of the connected web magazine (since October 2010).
Contract professor of History of Photography at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Brescia branch, he is curator of the history of photographic equipment section at the Alinari National Museum of Photography in Florence.
Lectio Magistralis of Photography and surroundings
Milan Triennale (viale Alemagna 6)
Until Thursday 16 July 2015, 19.00 pm
Free entry (subject to availability)
Live streaming on: http://www.afipinternational.com/diretta-video-streaming.html
Programme:
Thursday 2 July 2015, 19.00 pm
Gian Paolo Barbieri and Maurizio Rebuzzini
Natural elegance
Thursday 16 July 2015, 19.00 pm
Giovanni Gastel and Giuseppe Di Piazza
The rebirth of photography
