Dozens of artists, songwriters, musicians, singers, but among them also authors, such as Mogol and the DJs, above all Claudio Cecchetto. A project conceived by Rolling Stone Italia which has invited the great photographer Giovanni Gastel to curate a special issue dedicated to the protagonists of Italian music. They are the "100 faces of Italian music", a project never carried out before by a magazine: one hundred protagonists of our musical world portrayed by the unmistakable and elegant style of Giovanni Gastel. All the greatest representatives of Italian show biz enthusiastically joined this extraordinary adventure. Black and white and color shots, tight portraits, intense looks stolen from the camera. In the long list of personalities photographed for Rolling Stone, not only artists but also those who work behind the scenes: record companies, promoters, producers, managers.
Deep looks, bright smiles, the simplicity of a gesture, Gastel's work tells and expresses the soul and personality of each of the immortalized characters: from pop stars to rappers, from record companies to rock groups, "100 portraits that make up the artistic globe and definitive of the music of our country.” Gastel's is not a simple photographic project but a real act of love for Italian music, faces and "the sound of a wonderful country like you've never seen it before."
Gastel wanted to look his 100 subjects in the eyes, talk to them and be sure that his LED light, designed for the occasion, reflected in everyone's eyes. He wanted a distinctive and coherent sign. He wanted to collect the scattered thoughts. The precarious smiles. He sought fascination in the curiosity of looks. And that light, in the end, has become the double signature of these portraits.
His photographs manage to cross that invisible line of confidence, of intimacy, which belongs to each of us. Beyond that threshold, the gaze becomes a subject. It is Roland Barthes' punctum and then, the concept of truth no longer counts, the stories are held up thanks to the language of affections of which Gastel becomes the master, direct and sincere. Then, passion turns into expertise. Gastel is like a tightrope walker. And the photo shoot becomes a journey, but with a one-way ticket. What matters here is the path taken together, not the destination. Within those displacements, within those feelings, within his shots, even the most closed ones, there is always an open space: it is his and the others' availability for dialogue. And it is thus that, in this kaleidoscopic collective portrait, Gastel has collected the most varied human typologies. Having eliminated the factor of chance, what remains is the human quantity of which we are capable and which is represented here with strength and lucidity.”.
