The exhibition, which includes 32 Italian and foreign artists, shows how photography, especially in the last two decades, has become the art medium by definition, whether used directly, for representing reality, or manipulated to expose contradictions and states of mind that define our time. In order to represent this situation, special attention was paid to the younger generations as well as to well-known artists, with the aim of providing the youngest with a point of reference.
In the catalogue, curators give their own personal reading of the exhibition, identifying the trends that make it unique, defining the strategies that, year after year, have led to the building of the Collection, which is seen as an ongoing, in-progress project.
"In keeping with the perceptual conventions of an everyday culture that is forced on us by the media, most contemporary photography has no conceptual clarity, but an avowedly playful vein, involving primarily the identification between observers and what they see. On the basis of images, they build their own subjective form of reality." (Beate Ermacora).
"In modern, especially contemporary, photography, the photographic image and the text have interacted in all sorts of ways, without the need to work with 'captions', in Benjamin's sense. The reason why artists continue to combine text and photography is their will to make the work more effective by accumulating the multiple tools of vision and reading." (Andreas Hapkemeyer).
"The exhibition takes into account the fact that photography is becoming increasingly important for artists, and that the number of esthetic strategies seems almost inexhaustible. The individual image is taken over by the series, succession, or sequence, where the association of different images through grouping, or as dyptichs, leads to several readings." (Peter Weiermair).
"Photography, especially over the last two decades, has gradually come to the fore, for its ability to narrate reality directly, to assemble the teachings and experiences of the masters who worked in the post-war years with the new, pressing needs arising from our society." (Filippo Maggia).
Exhibited artists
Luca Andreoni and Antonio Fortugno, Nobuyoshi Araki, Olivo Barbieri, Julie Becker, Vanessa Beecroft, Paolo Bernabini, James Casebere, Sarah Cirac’, Larry Clark, Thomas Demand, Saul Fletcher, Nan Goldin, Noritoshi Hirakawa, Francesco Jodice, Barbara Kruger, Luisa Lambri, Zoe Leonard, Sharon Lockhart, Esko Mannikko, Ryuji Miyamoto, Tracey Moffatt, Shirin Neshat, Sakiko Nomura, Catherine Opie, Thomas Ruff, Collier Shorr, Cindy Sherman, Hannah Starkey, Georgina Starr, Alessandra Tesi, Wolfgang Tillmans, Hellen van Meene
Other venues
Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bolzano
June 11 – September 2, 2001
Rupertinum, Salzburg
October 13 – November 25, 2001
