The Casa dei Tre Oci presents the first retrospective dedicated to the great Fulvio Roiter after his death on 18 April 2016. 200 photographs, mostly vintage, tell the entire artistic life of the Venetian photographer.
The exhibition, curated by Denis Curti, made possible thanks to the precious contribution of his wife Lou Embo, will bring out through 200 photographs, most of them vintage, all the breadth and internationality of Fulvio Roiter's work, placing him among the most significant in our day. Starting from the origins and from the chance that determined Roiter's first approaches to photography, in the height of the neorealist season, whose compositional finesse the Venetian photographer inherited, the itinerary narrates the unprecedented and astonishing imaginaries that represent Venice and the lagoon, but also trips to New Orleans, Belgium, Portugal, Andalusia and Brazil. The result is 9 sections, each expression of a specific period in Roiter's life and style: The harmony of the story; Between amazement and wonder: Italy in colour; Venice in black and white: a self-portrait; The other Venice; The infinite beauty; Beyond reality; Beyond borders; Tribute to nature; The man without desires. In this way, the exhibition itinerary, fluid and coherent, marks the stages of a life entirely dedicated to photography and to the search for those places of the soul that have inspired its poetics, assuming pure and sincere passion as the only point of reference, lived by the author between scenarios of travel, discoveries and unconditional love.
Fulvio Roiter, Venice, Three Arches Bridge, 1979 © Fulvio Roiter Foundation
The exhibition is enriched with video projections, spectacular enlargements and about twenty original books, which, in addition to displaying Roiter's work on the page, also return the vastness of critical contributions of the many authors who have written about his work, including Andrea Zanzotto, Italo Zannier, Alberto Moravia, Ignazio Roiter, Fulvio Merlak, Gian Antonio Stella, Roberto Mutti, Giorgio Tani, Enzo Biagi. There is also the brief but intense memory of his wife Lou, referring to that first meeting in Belgium, which was the birth of a forty-year human and professional relationship.
The photographic book has in fact been the ideal container and vehicle for Fulvio Roiter's artistic work from the outset. And the complete dedication to it has led the author to receive numerous and important awards such as the prestigious Nadar Prize, obtained in 1956, with the book Umbria. Land of San Francesco, and the Grand Prix at Les Rencontres de la Photographie d'Arles, in 1978, with Being Venice.
With the same meticulous and careful approach with which he worked on editorial projects, Roiter did not leave out any step of the photographic production. For these reasons, he had to make the prints (as well as the books) personally, in the darkroom set up in his house, to then stamp and sign them, in order to enhance and pass on their value. A value that for the author could only be measured through love and passion, and whose greatness resonates in the words of his niece Jasmine like a promise and a hope: “Can such a small word, photo, become so big? Can two syllables be able to take you to distant worlds, to secret places, can they tell you an intimate and silent tale? Yes they can. Grandpa's photographs, however, seem to want to scratch the pages of books to be able to come out and become, if possible, even more real” (Jasmine Moro Roiter, Being Roiter, 22.04.2016).
During the opening of the exhibition, a rich program of collateral activities and initiatives will help highlight the connection between Roiter's life and art and the city of Venice through meetings and insights.
Image: Fulvio Roiter, High water in Piazzetta San Marco, 2002 © Fulvio Roiter Foundation
FULVIO ROITER
PHOTOGRAPHS 1948-2007
VENICE / THREE OCI
16.03> 26.08.2018
