Walker Evans. Italia

The exhibition aims to highlight the close relationship between the generation of Italian photographers in the post-war period, in particular Gabriele Basilico, Olivo Barbieri, Guido Guidi and Luigi Ghirri, and the work of Walker Evans, which, like that of Lee Friedlander, Robert Franck, and William Eggleston, was a fundamental point of reference for visual culture in Italy at that time, influencing artistic research in photography and beyond, and often enriching public and private collections.

The exhibition is both photography and bibliography; in fact, alongside 50 works by Evans from public collections (such as the Study Centre and Communication Archive of the University of Parma, the Galleria Civica of Modena) and private collections (such as the MAST Foundation, Guido Bertero and Marco Antonetto, the collection of Giovanna Calvenzi and Gabriele Basilico), visitors will also be able to view numerous books and rare editions from the personal collections of Ghirri, Basilico, Barbieri, and Guidi, along with a number of exemplary shots by the Italian photographers, stemming from their reflections on the lesson of the great American master.

The images on display underscore the profound influence that Evans had on these photographers from a formal and compositional point of view, and in terms of the precision of the image and the search for balance between documentation and interpretation.

Picture: Walker Evans, Crossroads General Store and Post Office, Sprott, Alabama, 1936. Data stampa 1980. Collezione privata © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York