LETIZIA BATTAGLIA.Just for passion
Transcript
LETIZIA BATTAGLIA.Just for passion
LETIZIA BATTAGLIA.Just for passion MAXXI is dedicating an anthological exhibition to the great Sicilian artist with over 250 photographs testifying to 40 years of Italian life and society 24 November 2016 – 17 April 2017 #LetiziaBattaglia | #PerPuraPassione www.fondazionemaxxi.it Born in Palermo in 1935 and known throughout the world for her photos of the mafia, Letizia Battaglia has provided and continues to provide one of the most extraordinary and acute visual testimonies to Italian life and society, in particular that of Sicily.Recognised as one of the most important figures in contemporary photography for the civic and ethical value of her work, Letizia Battaglia is not only the “photographer of the mafia” but also, through her artistic work and as a photo reporter for the daily newspaper L’Ora, the first woman and in 1985 in New York she became the first European photographer to receive the prestigious internationalW. Eugene Smith Award, the international prize commemorating the Lifephotographer. Shortly after the celebrations for her 80th birthday, MAXXI is organizing LETIZIA BATTAGLIA.Just for passion, a major exhibition curated by Paolo Falcone, Margherita Guccione and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, that from 24 November 2016 through to 17 April 2017 brings to MAXXI over 250 photographs, contact sheets and previously unseen vintage prints from the archive of this great artist, along with magazines, publications, films and interviews. Visual testimony to the bloodiest mafia atrocities and and social and political reality of Italy, a number of her shots are firmly embedded in the collective consiousness: Giovanni Falcone at the funeral of the General Dalla Chiesa; Piersanti Mattarella asassinated in the arms of his brother Sergio; the widow of Vito Schifano; the boss Leoluca Bagarella following his arrest; Giulio Andreotti with Nino Salvo. “I am particularly happy with this exhibition”, says Giovanna Melandri, president of Fondazione MAXXI, “with which we celebrate not only the extraordinary work of the photographer Letizia Battaglia, but also her social commitment, her militant passion that has seen her incessantly on the front line for diverse causes: legality, women’s issues, enviornmental problems, prisoners’ rights. A commitment that has brought her numerous prizes and awards around the world.” THE EXHIBITION Organized in two macro areas, the exhibitions intends to provide a 360° overview of multi-faceted, courageous and indefatigable personalità of Letizia Battglia and represent the complexity of her interests in photography, publishing. experimental theatre and politics. These aspects are explored in the documentary section that opens the exhibition and recounts her intensive and varied work of a social nature. There are examples of her work as a photo-reporter in Palermo and Milan,such as her first photo spread depicting the prostitute Enza Montoro, dated 1969 and published in the daily newspaper L’Ora, for which she worked for over twenty years, photographs of occupations, of protests in the piazzas, of political rallies in the Seventies in Milan, those of the new creative scene in Milan that led her to meet and portray Pier Paolo Pasolini and Franca Rameand which are leaving her archives for the first time for this occasion. Another previously unseen series exhibited at MAXXI for the first time is the one created in 1983 in the psychiatric hospital in Via Pindemonte in Palermo: Battaglia collaborated extensively with the “Real Casa dei Matti”, organizing theatre workshops and activities that would converge into the films Festa d’agosto and Vatinni, presented here for the first time after thirty years.This nucleus of works will be acquired by MAXXI for its permanent collection. Then there is the story of the photographer’s extensive publishing career with magazines such asGRANDEVU’, Edizioni della battaglia,Mezzocielo and her work as a director. A table at the centre of the room displays further previously unseen material from Letizia Battagli’s archive: contact sheets and files, notes, historic pages from L’Ora. Hung in Gallery 1, the exhibition also features the film, produced by the Municipality of Palermo and previewed at MAXXI, La mia Battaglia. Franco Maresco incontra Letizia Battaglia, an intense story of Palermo, the city that the artist has made known to the world. In the exhibition there is also the major installation ANTHOLOGIA, composed of 120 suspended large format images (66x100)in black and white portraying the places and victims of Mafia assassinations, but also the lives and faces of Palermo society. Images of pain, poverty, death, wealth, hope and rebellion sketch out a multi-voiced narrative illustrating a historic period spanning more than forty years. In the photos on Mafia investigations, Battaglia portrayed judges, police officers and men from institutions at the front line in the battle against Cosa Nostra: from Giorgio Boris Giuliano to Ninni Cassarà, the judge Cesare Terranova, the President of the Region of Sicily Piersanti Mattarella, General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa and Giovanni Falcone. Numerous photos from the Politici e mafia series are on display, including those of Salvo Lima and Vito Ciancimino, leading figures in the events involving the entwinement of politics and the Mafia.The photograph of Giulio Andreotti with the Mafioso Nino Salvo is emblematic: found by the Anti-Mafia Pool in Battaglia’s archives, it became central to one of the main charges in the trial against the Christian Democrat leader.Among the main Mafia members portrayed by Battaglia, we find little-known figures as well as men such as Leoluca Bagarella, shown while being arrested. This picture became an icon in the struggle against Mafia crimes. The Eighties were especially prolific for Battaglia. In addition to news photos, she portrayed society in general, moments of everyday life, women and children in the city’s lower-class districts.Alongside them, she also captured the bourgeoisie and nobility of Palermo, which played a leading role in parties and receptions, as well as processions, funerals and religious celebrations.Her experimentation continued in the Nineties, with re-elaborations, in which the female figure is overlaid on violent historic pictures. Many of the photographs in the exhibition are among the 240 published in the extensive book ANTHOLOGY published by Drago (2016). On the occasion of the exhibition at MAXXI, the book is accompanied by a second volume relating to the exposition LETIZIA BATTAGLIA. Just for passion. The press kit and images of the exhibition can be downloaded from the Reserved Area of the Fondazione MAXXI’s website at http://www.fondazionemaxxi.it/area-riservata/ by typing in the password areariservatamaxxi MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Arts www.fondazionemaxxi.it - info:06.320.19.54; [email protected] opening hours:11:00 AM – 7:00 PM (Tues, Weds, Thurs, Fri, Sun) | 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM (Sat) | closed Mondays Admittance free for students of art architecture from Tuesday to Friday MAXXI PRESS OFFICE +39 06 324861 [email protected] LETIZIA BATTAGLIA. Per pura passione Giovanna Melandri President Fondazione MAXXI Letizia Battaglia’s photos have a quality about them that only artists know how to convey. Letizia herself once said to me that everybody takes photos these days, but that changes nothing: everyone knows how to hold a pen, yet very few can write a great novel. Letizia’s pictures draw us into the most tragic events, feelings and contexts, telling us a story that regards us directly even if it is far removed, stirring our conscience even if we think we are immune to certain abysses. In short, her photos possess the power of art. Letizia – I will use her first name because we met many years ago, together with Alex Langer – is a beloved travel companion of my generation, thanks to her commitment to lawfulness, the environment and feminism. Perhaps without even knowing it, many people have walked a section of their road with her in everyday life, in movements and in institutions. The great thing is that Letizia has been a teacher without ever having posed as one, instead seeking to accompany our dreams, anger, disappointments and plans. Harrowing and full of light, her images have punched us in the stomach many times, while also stimulating our minds. First and foremost, they have never taken away the freedom of our eyes, emotions and hopes. Her way of invoking justice, fighting the Mafia, consoling the victims and the oppressed, stripping power bare or illustrating the gracefulness of young girls is the result of her liberation as a woman, a photographer and an intellectual, which she has conquered step by step through her passion and determination. It is the result of an unmistakable human dimension of pure passion. A common thread binds several pages of her personality, with all the contradictions and rifts that she has always defended, both in public and in private: the photography that has brought her to the world’s attention, the policy of small but significant achievements and pointless liturgies, voluntary work and the theatre, and, last but not least, her wonderful publications, which we wanted to document extensively in the exhibition. Organizing this wonderful and highly original anthological exhibition is a unique opportunity for MAXXI. It is not a rhetorical tribute, which she would have swiftly returned to sender. It is not a cold review, a catalogue of horrors and illusions to be flicked through as if they were remote history. Letizia Battaglia’s shots never fail to disturb us, move us and arouse our indignation, although today it is possible that even a great photographer like her would struggle to depict an increasingly concealed and almost domesticated Mafia. In this exhibition curated by Margherita Guccione, Bartolomeo Pietromarchi and Paolo Falcone, you will be dismayed to see the victims and tormentors, the blood and pain, the heroes and sphinxes that at a certain moment she decided to stop portraying, devastated by the pain of having lost friends and key figures such as Chinnici, Falcone and Borsellino. It is another raw and biting tableau of Italy. Following on from the exhibitions devoted to Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico, Luigi Ghirri and the photographers of ‘Extraordinary Visions. L’italia ci guarda’, our exhibition devoted to Italy, the Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo is continuing to develop its accounts of other great masters of photography. Letizia obviously had to be included. LETIZIA BATTAGLIA. Per pura passione Margherita Guccione e Bartolomeo Pietromarchi curators “I am a person, not a photographer,” states Letizia Battaglia. As is often the case, artists seem to be able to sum up the meaning and substance of an entire vein of research with incomparable efficacy. This is certainly true of Battaglia, who tells her life story in these few words: the story of a woman who has always established a close link with what was happening around her, using photography (but also other means) to tell the tale. A visual witness of some of the bloodiest Mafia events, and of Italy’s social and political situation, Battaglia is considered one of the most important figures in contemporary photography, not just because of the prime position occupied by her shots in the collective imagination, but also because of the civic and ethical role she attributes to photography. The exhibition, curated with Paolo Falcone, that MAXXI is devoting to this photographer from Palermo aims to illustrate all of her many interests, including photography, publishing, experimental theatre and politics, through a corpus of more than 300 images, including a considerable number of unpublished works. Indeed, the exhibition provided an opportunity to explore the Battaglia Archive in depth, salvaging dozens of unpublished shots, vintage photographs, specimens, documents and study materials, and gathering up the results of her intense publishing work with more than 100 publications to her name. The exhibition opens with a map of Palermo. Battaglia has a love-hate relationship with the city, and has managed to portray its many places and faces: the docile faces of young girls in the historic neighbourhoods, the cruel faces of Mafiosi on the doorstep of the courts, the proud faces of Palermo’s nobility in its beautiful aristocratic villas and the faces of the common people in the local markets. The first section of the exhibition focuses on her work as a photojournalist: a journey that began with her first photograph of the prostitute Enza Montoro, followed by her fundamental Milanese experience of the early Seventies, when she documented rightand left-wing political processes and events, the activity of the Teatro Sperimentale and the Palazzina Liberty. She then returned to Sicily where, heading the photography department at L’Ora, she took photos that documented the long Mafia War: from Piersanti Mattarella to Giovanni Falcone, Leoluca Bagarella and Giulio Andreotti, many protagonists of recent history have been portrayed by her lens in the crucial moments of the country’s political life. It continues with her extensive activism in the field of publishing, with a section that features most of the publications she has worked on: from GrandeVù to Mezzocielo, and including the first issue of Fotografia and the complete series of the collection significantly entitled Edizioni della battaglia (which literally translates as “battle publications” in English). The third section presents the “Other passions” that inspired her civic work: political activity as a councillor under Leoluca Orlando during the “Palermo Spring”; links with the world of culture represented by portraits of intellectuals; her experience with Michele Perriera’s Teates drama school. Also exhibited here for the first time are the photos taken in the Seventies at the psychiatric hospital on via Pindemonte in Palermo, where Battaglia ran a theatre workshop. Her long-term involvement with the hospital is also illustrated by films she directed with a group of patients. The arrangement of the first part of the exhibition on the various themes is then countered by the large installation in the second part of the gallery, “Anthologia”, which has already been presented at the ZAC in Palermo, curated by Paolo Falcone. Over 120 photographs illustrate an intense visual journey, offering visitors the possibility to immerse themselves in a forest of images that cover 40 years of work and of Italy’s political and social life. Following on from “Extraordinary Visions. L’Italia ci guarda”, the exhibition with which MAXXI celebrated 70 years of the Italian Republic, the museum is once again reflecting on our country’s recent history through the versatile tool of photography, with a solo exhibition that forms part of a broader project to promote contemporary photographers. This project was launched by MAXXI Architettura in 2013 with the monographic exhibition devoted to Luigi Ghirri, then continued with Gabriele Basilico and Olivo Barbieri. With “Letizia Battaglia. Just for passion”, curated in partnership by MAXXI Arte and MAXXI Architettura, the museum aims to add another notch to its examination of the most important figures of our time who have undertaken to interpret the Italian situation with consistency, courage and pure passion. LETIZIA BATTAGLIA. Per pura passione Paolo Falcone curator I just think it’s important to be direct and honest with people about why you’re photographing them and what you are doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul. Mary Ellen Mark “Good morning Letiziuccia, good morning Paoluccio.” Almost every day for the past three years, between 6:30 and 7:30, my day begins with an affectionate hello to Letizia over the phone. Whether she is working or not on a project, this greeting is the prelude to great morning conversations, confrontations and research during which new discoveries are made, that enrich what is Letizia Battaglia. Although she is known internationally, most of her work has yet to be discovered. There are many elements to be observed and studied when looking at her extensive photographic, editorial, literary and theatrical production, in addition to her work as a politician and activist. All of this has helped to identify her as one of the main witnesses and protagonists of the last 40 years of Italy’s cultural life. In “Letizia Battaglia. Just for Passion”, the exhibition that continues on the path of Anthologia1, new parts of her complex creative production are told. The advent of the digital and of the so-called 2.0 photography has redefined the compositional and expressive codes of the photographic universe freeing the analogical photography from the rules and parameters which conditioned it for years. In addition, the introduction of plastic photography has also allowed to redefine the codes of composition, allowing the discovery of new relationships between images and highlighting compositional elements, previously ignored, from the archives of photographers. In this context, we redefined the kronos, and initiated a new research into Letizia Battaglia’s enormous archive: unprinted and forgotten photographs have come to life defining unprecedented points of view. Letizia is one of the most persistent interpreters of Ellen Mark’s school of thought, i.e. the importance of the relationship between the photographer and the subject. Always get close when photographing, enough to give a punch or a caress. As Letizia points put, the punctum in photography is “the essence of the image.”2 It can be a meaningful look, a furrowed expression, a smile, the detail of a chipped wall, a writing, anything that can emotionally guide us inside the perception of the composition. Together with Letizia we plunge into her archive, looking for the punctum. With her constantly lighted cigarette, we go deep into decades of extraordinary shots, finding bits of a past that still needs to be understood. We sometimes discuss about which images should be selected and some turn out to be surprises for both of us. Letizia asks with her usual irony: “Who will be interested in these photos?” We always end up agreeing and choose the same photos. We look at the contact sheets and the negatives, tidily spread out in the study and start analysing layers of life, photographed or lived, together with all the emotions that come with them, as if we were visual archaeologists. Our research started many years ago in Rome, during Cesare Manzo’s exhibition, when we presented the 1975 shot Homicide with a Palermo license plate, a photo that has become one of Letizia’s iconic photos. Starting with this emblematic image, we redefined names, contexts, dates, we looked over and analysed previous selections, creating new scenarios which represent the constantly changing selective and semantic process.3 We are working in a similar way to select the images for the MAXXI exhibition. With the small lenses we look, discover, highlight and send for printing. In the end, new photos always emerge, full of that je ne sais quoi that make Letizia’s shots unique. The image that starts the MAXXI exhibition is dated 1969 and portrays the prostitute Enza Montoro. She was involved in a homicide in which her lover and pimp killed her main competitor, the last arrival in the section of Palermo, considered her domain. This was Battaglia’s first published shot, even before becoming a photographer. At the time, Letizia had only been working for L’Ora for a few months, without a contract, and behind a desk. The opportunity arrived in the summer when all the editors were on holiday. Letizia offered to work and was “hired.”4 The article about Enza Montoro was her first story and she attached a photo to it. Photography still hasn’t taken over her life, but somehow Letizia already had a camera in her hand. Just like Enza, she was to radically change her life. At the time she is still married to Franco5, the father of her three daughters, and she continues her sessions with the Freudian psychoanalyst Francesco Corrao. A few months later she will leave her husband and Palermo. Her real start in photography is in Milan. She manages to get a contract with L’Ora, as a correspondent. In the meantime she starts a collaboration with the tabloid Le Ore, a glossy newspaper which will later become a pornographic icon6. We find shots done for Le Ore dated back to 1971: a group of young people dance naked. Images that take us back to the 1970s, years full of hope, discoveries, research, transgressions and sexual freedom. The bodies are enveloped in a game of sensual gazes, against the backdrop of old ruins. Whilst in Milan, Letizia has a committed curiosity: she attends the Palazzina Liberty and photographs Franca Rame, Pier Paolo Pasolini at the Circolo Turati, she documents assemblies, meetings and important events of the moment. In 1974 she is appointed to follow the trial against L’Ora, accused of publishing, on its front page, a composition of Bruno Caruso’s images portraying old Mafia bosses (including Luciano Liggio), together with powerful politicians of Palermo, considered close to the Mafia. These include Giovanni Gioia, Vito Ciancimino, Salvo Lima of the Democratic Christian party and prosecutor Scaglione, who will later be killed by the Mafia. Vito Ciancimino and Giovanni Gioia testify against the newspaper, together with the sons of Scaglione. Captain Russo and General Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, later killed with his wife by Cosa Nostra in Palermo, testify in favour. L’Ora is convicted and Bruno Caruso is obliged to pay a fine. Today it would be considered an oxymoron. Letizia documents the important parts of the trial: it is the first report about the Sicilian Mafia. In “Letizia Battaglia. Just for Passion”, a series of photos retracing the terrible years of the second Mafia War, is presented. Photos of homicides forgotten over the years, such as the Homicide on a bicycle (1984), the raid of the “room of death” (1983), Giorgio Boris Giuliano’s desk on the day of his homicide (1979), the homicide in Piazza del Carmine (1978), a small town communist club, the emblematic photo of Salvo Lima at a Christian Democratic party convention against the Mafia (1982). Letizia foresees the truth when she takes a photo of the politician, who has ties to Andreotti, with the symbol of the party (a shield with a cross) and the writing “la Mafia” on the background. Salvo Lima is killed by the Corleonesi in 1992 and his ties to Cosa Nostra are revealed during the trials against the Mafia. A series of photographs, presumably printed during the 1980s, appear from a small but very full storage. They turn out to be a revelation: never before seen photos, particularly moving and heart breaking, in some cases ironic, of which we do not have much information. The interchange of a provincial road where a rundown newsstand sits in between road signs indicating Palermo and Racalmuto, dripping with the dense and mysterious atmosphere of the Sicilian countryside. A table and a chair in a countryside house, a silent image that reflects De Chirico’s compositions. The same spatiality can be found in the photo portraying the column of the Duomo of Monreale, which is dominated by shadows, giving it its particular feeling and photographical signature. A child striking a pose on a sofa, surrounded by votive candles. A group of comrades in a Baroque church, with their arms raised and their hands closed in a fist, creating a striking contract between sacred, challenge and secular materialism. The portraits of two old people in an old house in the countryside. The homicide of a man, whose dangling head appears surrounded by people in deep conversation, uninterested in the body 7. These treasures have appeared from an archive which has yet to be completely explored. Whilst looking at these photographs, Letizia is told that her brother Ernesto has passed away. It is an intense and poignant moment for all of us. Ernesto isn’t just her brother. He is the companion of a lifetime, and together with many other photographers, a part of that dramatic period of time, during which the Laboratorio d’IF witnessed the bloody brutality of the second Mafia War. Ernesto shot extraordinary photos, including the portrait of Luciano Liggio in handcuffs with a cigar in his mouth. A part of Letizia dies with Ernesto and we gather even more closely around her. One of the photographers Letizia most appreciates is the American Diane Arbus whom she meets in the Eighties. She particularly likes the image of a boy affected by Down Syndrome (Untitled, 1990) who harshly looks at the camera. As Fred Ritchin says: Photography intensifies visual linguistic metaphors, transforming human acts in images8. With her minimalist and direct language, Diane Arbus foregoes the expressive parameters of photography in order to highlight deeply intense expressions. Her photographs create unmediated and uncompromised relationships, similar to Letizia’s images portraying the patients of the psychiatric hospital: lonely men and women, often abandoned by their families. This is a path made of photographs, videos and theatrical pieces that she shares with her partner Franco Zecchin (involving her daughters Patrizia and Shobha). Complex and brave life choices that bring her to adopt Graziella, one of the patients of the asylum in via Pindemonte. These forgotten shots reappear today, creating a selection of images full of pathos and pietas. A complete series, an emotional scenery, that is structurally recreated for the first time on the occasion of this exhibition9. We decided to also involve also the Director Franco Maresco, who created a work about insanity presented at MAXXI for the first time. In addition to her political and social commitment, Letizia has always had a deep interest for the intellectual world, with a predilection for literature and theatre. She witnesses the events of the Gruppo 63 in Palermo and is great friends with Michele Perriera and Gaetano Testa. It is at the theatre that she meets Franco Zecchin, and where she experiments with Grotowsky’s language. Letizia decides to try directing and does so with Uccidiamo il chiaro di Luna. Una serata futurista,10 played at the Teatro Biondo in Palermo on 8 April 1981. In 1982 she directs Il Pianto della Madonna by Jacopone da Todi, where a female Christ dominates the scene. In the same year she directs her first video, Festa d’Agosto, filmed entirely in Palermo’s psychiatric hospital, and featuring her daughter Patrizia as the main character and the patients of the hospital. The last section of the exhibition is dedicated to portraits: Renato Guttuso with his palette, Bob Wilson at the Teatro Garibaldi, Josef Koudelka, Frank Zappa, Dacia Maraini, Gae Aulenti, Nobel Prize winner Wisława Szymborska and porn star Cicciolina. Letizia’s last and great objective is the International Photography Centre: a dynamic centre at the Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, a promise made by the mayor Leoluca Orlando and a new hope for the city of Palermo. An objective that seems to finally be coming to life after three generations of important photographers who have marked some of the most important stages of modern and contemporary photography. Together with Letizia, we enthusiastically await her project in order to add new notes to the travel diary of this extraordinary activist and visionary. 1 Letizia Battaglia, Anthologia, curated by Paolo Falcone Rome, DRAGO, 2016. My essay published within the catalogue retraces the main steps of Letizia Battaglia’s life and her photographic work. An emotional journey through her photos that intertwines with Sicily’s history from the 1970s to today. 2 Interview with the writer, 2016 3 Before that, Melissa Harris published Letizia Battaglia: Passion Justice Freedom, Photographs of Sicily, New York: Aperture, 1999. This publication is the first collection of Letizia Battaglia’s photographic work. In 2000 we organised the exhibition Passione Giustizia e Libertà which revolved around the the 20th century in the Cantieri Culturali at the Zisa for the Festival di Palermo. It was directed by Roberto Ando and was the first institutional exhibition to be organised in Palermo throughout Letizia’s career. 4 For 19 years she collaborated with L’Ora, Letizia has never had a regular contract. 5 Franco Stagnitta. Letizia is married to him for over fifteen years and together they have three daughters: Cinzia, Shobha (also a well-known photographer) and Patrizia. 6 Le Ore dedicates itself to cinema and culture until 1967. In 1971 it becomes an erotic magasine and transitions to pornography in 1977. 7 Triple homicide in Vucciria, 1978 8 Fred Ritchin, After photography, Turin, 2009, Piccola biblioteca Einaudi. 2012, p. 80 9 Just a few photographs were selected for an exhibition in Follonica. 10 For the occasion Letizia Battaglia is the director, inspires costumes and scenography, and collaborates with Serena Barone, Giovanna Cossu, Giuliana Crocivera, Sabina Di Pasquale, Gloria Liverati, Mariella Lo Sardo and Nicola Petrucci. An extraordinary Enrico Stassi recites F.T.Marinetti’s passionate monologue Uccidiamo il chiaro di luna. The wording is written by Marinetti, Balla, Boccioni, Cangiullo, Pratella, Settimelli, Corradini, Farfa, Valentine de Sain Point. LETIZIA BATTAGLIA. Just for passion INTRODUCTION A visual witness of Italy’s social and political situation, and particularly news about the Mafia, Letizia Battaglia is recognized as one of the most important figures in contemporary photography, not only for her shots, which are deeply engraved in the collective unconscious, but also for the civic and ethical value of her work. The exhibition that MAXXI is dedicating to her examines her multifaceted personality, with interests ranging from photography to publishing, experimental theatre and politics, through a corpus of over 250 images, and various original materials and documents. The exhibition is divided into two parts. The first probes her activity as a photo journalist in Milan and Palermo, her long-term commitment to the publishing industry her interest in experimental theatre, directing, and her experience with the patients at the psychiatric hospital in Via Pindemonte. The materials – vintage photographs, proofs with autograph notes, archival entries, refound prints and publications – are from her archive and are being exhibited here for the first time. In the second part, the scene opens onto the large Anthologia installation, with the corpus of Battaglia’s work: a labyrinth of over 120 photographs punctuates an intense visual path and renders the variety of subjects she portrayed over the course of forty years. The leading players of recent history are juxtaposed with ordinary people, little girls and women; places in the news are set against views of the lower-class neighbourhoods of Palermo and those of its nobility. This is a journey through the work of one of the most significant figures of our time, who has interpreted what Italy is with constancy, courage and pure passion. LETIZIA BATTAGLIA. Just for passion THE EXHIBITION SECTION I The exhibition opens with material – most of which previously unpublished – regarding Letizia Battaglia’s work as a photojournalist. Her first photo spread, on the prostitute Enza Montoro, is dated 1969 and was published in the daily L’Ora, for which she worked for over twenty years. Nevertheless, her true debut in news photography dates to her period in Milan, between 1971 and 1974, when she came into contact with the city’s lively intellectual milieu. Here she met Pier Paolo Pasolini, documented the experience of the experimental theatre of Franca Rame and Dario Fo’s Palazzina Liberty, and witnessed several political trials, collaborating with various periodicals. When she returned to Sicily, she and Franco Zecchin founded the photographic department of L’Ora. Throughout the Seventies and Eighties she documented the city affected by the second war against the Mafia, but also animated by a desire for redemption and rebirth. The series dedicated to Palermo, with previously unpublished prints and vintage photographs, testifies to her presence at the front line to portray the thousands of faces of Palermo: from the docile ones of little girls in the city’s historic districts to the defenceless ones of the ammazzatine, the haughty portraits of Palermo’s nobility and those of ordinary people captured in intimate everyday moments. Battaglia’s work as a photojournalist is also documented by the work table in the middle of the room, with other materials – previously unpublished and never displayed before – from her studio. Also on display is the report for RAI by Giuseppe Marrazzo for the exhibition entitled La città e il potere staged by Letizia Battaglia and Franco Zecchin in the main square of Corleone in 1979. Milan – Genoa: the beginning In 1971 Letizia Battaglia left Palermo to move to Milan. It was a very delicate moment for the country: political dialectics degenerated into a season of both right- and left-wing terrorism, but it was also marked by extraordinary cultural vivacity. The ambivalence of this phase, between anxiety and ferment, is captured effectively by her photographs. In 1972 Battaglia met Pier Paolo Pasolini at the Circolo Turati and devoted a series of portraits to him. She was also a habitué of the Palazzina Liberty, occupied by Franca Rame and Dario Fo’s “Collettivo teatrale la Comune”. As a correspondent for L’Ora Battaglia documented various political trials that resonated widely, such as the one of three neo-Fascists charged with the failed bombing of the Turin-Rome train. One of the most significant was the Genoa trial in which L’Ora was the defendant because it had published a satirical illustration portraying members of the Mafia and leading local politicians together. Key figures from the era testified at the trial: Salvo Lima and Vito Ciancimino, among the accusers, and General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa defending the daily paper. While she was working for L’Ora, Battaglia also collaborated with other periodicals, such as the magazine Le Ore, for which she took a series of erotic shots presented here for the first time. Palermo from the Seventies to the Nineties After her Milanese experience, Letizia Battaglia returned to Palermo to oversee the photographic department of the daily L’Ora. To respond to the need to “cover” everything happening in the city around the clock, she and Franco Zecchin founded the Laboratorio d’Informazione Fotografica. For Palermo these were the dramatic years of the second Mafia war, pitting the “Corleonesi” clan against the “city” Mafia, and of the harshest attacks by Cosa Nostra against institutions. All of this would spark the indignation of civil society, but it also led to the city’s cultural and political renaissance in the second half of the Eighties with the “Palermo Spring”. Battaglia was one of the leading representatives of this renewal phase, thanks also to her political commitment, as a municipal representative of the Green Party starting in 1986 and then as Councillor for Roads and Parks in the council led by Leoluca Orlando. Displayed on the table are materials from the studio documenting Battaglia’s works as a photo journalist: autograph notes for publication in newspapers, proofs and archival entries, as well as several historical pages from the daily L’Ora. The wall features photographs documenting Battaglia’s rapport with the prestigious Magnum Photos. Although the agency never represented the photographer, it distributed her most famous photographs, bearing witness to the international interest in her work starting from the second half of the Eighties, coinciding with her being awarded the Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography in New York in 1985. SECTION II The publications on display illustrate Letizia Battaglia's extensive activity in the field of publishing. More than thirty years of experience alongside her work as a photographer, evolving out of her ongoing interest in writing and literature. The first and only issue of Fotografia, a magazine devoted expressly to female photographers, was published in 1986 and paid tribute to the US photographer Donna Ferrato. This was also the year of foundation of La Luna, the first publishing house devoted to women’s writing. December of the same year saw the publication of the first issue of the monthly GRANDEVÙ. Grandezze e bassezze della città di Palermo, which soon became a reference point for the debate on the city's political, environmental and social situation during the crucial years of the “Palermo Spring”. Mezzocielo, launched in 1991 and developed in partnership with Simona Mafai and Rosanna Pirajno, with the contribution of numerous figures from the world of culture, is a magazine “for women, by women” that is still in publication today. In 1992, in response to the murders of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the Edizioni della battaglia project got underway, with more than one hundred essays on literary criticism, translations of Italian and international authors, political pamphlets and social reports. Despite their different formats and objectives, these independent publications all bear witness to Letizia Battaglia’s militant commitment, apparent not only in the content, which often flows smoothly from one magazine to the next, but also in the graphics. In most cases she handled all the editing herself, as can be seen in the central role assigned to the images, the blunt titles, and the close relationship between the words and images. SECTION III This section examines less-known aspects of Letizia Battaglia’s multifaceted personality: directing plays and films, theatre, and civil and social commitment went hand in hand with photography, politics and publishing. The formative experience with Michele Perriera’s Teatès drama school, which represents the experimental avant-garde of the Eighties and Nineties in Palermo, is documented by images illustrating the mise-en-scène of two shows directed by Battaglia, Il pianto della Madonna di Jacopone da Todi and Uccidiamo il chiaro di luna. Una serata futurista. The series of photographs displayed here bear witness to Battaglia’s primary focus on people and their stories. Regardless of whether they are figures from the world of culture – in the series of portraits – or ordinary people, Battaglia’s attitude has always been that of engaging in an open, loyal and direct dialogue with the subject she is portraying. This form of proximity, which accompanies all of her experience as a news photographer, is evident in the series portraying the patients at the psychiatric hospital in Via Pindemonte, in Palermo. Battaglia collaborated extensively with the “Real Casa dei Matti” in the late Seventies and Eighties, organizing theatre workshops and activities that would converge into the films Festa d’agosto and Vatinni, presented here for the first time after thirty years. DIRECTING Letizia Battaglia developed a passion for theatre and literature as early as the Seventies, when she forged a close friendship with Gaetano Testa and Michele Perriera, the two leading representatives of the so-called “Palermo school”. She thus came into contact with Gruppo ’63, an avant-garde literary movement composed of poets, novelists and critics who first met in Palermo and embarked on the earliest literary and theatrical experiments. Jerzy Grotowski, whom she met in Venice in 1975, was another point of reference during this period, as was the experience with the Teatès theatre workshop. This led to the two works in which she was involved as a director. Uccidiamo il chiaro di luna. Una serata futurista, the title of which evokes the 1909 poem by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, stages readings from the vehement texts of the avant-gardists of the early twentieth century; the interaction of the actors on stage is complemented by stage machinery in the Dadaist style. Il pianto della Madonna di Jacopone da Todi, a medieval text dedicated to the Passion, narrates the last moments in the life of Christ, from his humiliations to his trial and crucifixion. In the work staged by Battaglia, the figure of Christ is played by a woman, a clear allusion to the themes of sacrifice and gender violence that have always been central to her. Her experimentation as a director did not stop with theatre. The two films shown here, Festa d’agosto and Vatinni, were made by Battaglia with professional actors and patients from the psychiatric hospital in Via Pindemonte. SECTION IV The Anthologia installation collects the height of Letizia Battaglia’s work on a path with over 120 photographs, exploring iconic pictures and less well-known shots. They portray the places and victims of Mafia assassinations, but also the lives and faces of Palermo society. Images of pain, poverty, death, wealth, hope and rebellion sketch out a multi-voiced narrative illustrating a historic period spanning more than forty years. In the photos on Mafia investigations, Battaglia portrayed judges, police officers and men from institutions at the front line in the battle against Cosa Nostra: from Giorgio Boris Giuliano to Ninni Cassarà, the judge Cesare Terranova, the President of the Region of Sicily Piersanti Mattarella, General Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa and Giovanni Falcone. Numerous photos from the Politici e mafia series are on display, including those of Salvo Lima and Vito Ciancimino, leading figures in the events involving the entwinement of politics and the Mafia. The photograph of Giulio Andreotti with the Mafioso Nino Salvo is emblematic: found by the Anti-Mafia Pool in Battaglia’s archives, it became central to one of the main charges in the trial against the Christian Democrat leader. Among the main Mafia members portrayed by Battaglia, we find little-known figures as well as men such as Leoluca Bagarella, shown while being arrested. This picture became an icon in the struggle against Mafia crimes. The Eighties were especially prolific for Battaglia. In addition to news photos, she portrayed society in general, moments of everyday life, women and children in the city’s lower-class districts. Alongside them, she also captured the bourgeoisie and nobility of Palermo, which played a leading role in parties and receptions, as well as processions, funerals and religious celebrations. Her experimentation continued in the Nineties, with re-elaborations, in which the female figure is overlaid on violent historic pictures. VIDEO La mia Battaglia – Tribute to Letizia Battaglia Pazza Palermo by Franco Maresco is a tribute video celebrating Battaglia and her relationship with the subject of madness and engaging with others. In the film, previewed at MAXXI, several Super 8 sequences – filmed by the photographer in the late Seventies and early Eighties at the psychiatric hospital in Via Pindemonte in Palermo – dialogue with literary texts on madness and with a musical score selected by Maresco. Le�zia Ba�aglia JUST FOR PASSION ISBN: 978-88-985652-07 Dimensions: 34,5 x 24,5cm Content: Photo, text Format: Hardcover Pages: 140 Price: 40 € - 34 £ - 45 $ Market: Visual culture, street photography Publica�on: November 2016 Language: English Contributors: P. Falcone, F. Ritchin, A. Bolzoni, G. Calvenzi, G. Melandri, L. Orlando, F. Imbergamo, M. Guccione, B. Pietromarchi Drago is delighted to feature Letizia Battaglia’s work for the second time following the success of her anthology curated by Paolo Falcone. The Sicilian photographer’s new book “Just for passion” catalogues her exhibition at the MAXXI the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome. The book explores the incredible scope and character of Letizia Battaglia’s work. The photographs included capture an intimate insight into the ambivalence of Italian life, from harrowing images of the Mafia to beautiful portraits of the women and children of Palermo. “Just for passion” further explores Battaglia’s social commitment from her political activism in Milan to her volunteer work for a psychiatric hospital in Palermo. Other occupations outside of photography such as publishing work and contributions to theatre and cinema are also exhibited. Contributers include the Dean of the International Center of Photography in New York Fred Ritchin, the curator Paolo Falcone, the journalist Attilio Bolzoni, the photography critic Giovanna Calvenzi, the Major of Palermo Leoluca Orlando, Palermo’s Anti-Mafia Magistrate Franca Imbergamo, the Director of MAXXI Art Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, the President of the MAXXI Museum Giovanna Melandri and the Director of MAXXI Architecture Margherita Guccione. The cover picture is a portrait of the italian poet Pier Paolo Pasolini. DRAGO MEDIA KOMPANY srl - Via Maria Adelaide, 12 - 00196 Rome, Italy - T: +39 06 45439018/ +39 06 45439132 - [email protected] - www.dragolab.com Le�zia Ba�aglia JUST FOR PASSION DRAGO MEDIA KOMPANY srl - Via Maria Adelaide, 12 - 00196 Rome, Italy - T: +39 06 45439018/ +39 06 45439132 - [email protected] - www.dragolab.com Le�zia Ba�aglia JUST FOR PASSION Le�zia Ba�aglia Letizia Battaglia (born 5 March 1935) is an Italian photographer and photojournalist. Although her photos document a wide spectrum of Sicilian life, she is best known for her work on the Mafia. She was born in Palermo, Sicily. Married at 16, she took up photojournalism after her divorce in 1971, while raising three daughters. Over the years she documented the ferocious internal war of the Mafia, and its assault on civil society. Battaglia sometimes found herself at the scene of four or five different murders in a single day. Battaglia and Zecchin produced many of the iconic images that have come to represent Sicily and the Mafia throughout the world. She photographed the dead so often that she was like a roving morgue. “Suddenly,” she once said, “I had an archive of blood.” Battaglia also became involved in women’s and environmental issues. For several years she stopped taking pictures and officially entered the world of politics. From 1985 to 1991 she held a seat on the Palermo city council for the Green Party, from 1991 to 1996 she was a Deputy at the Sicilian Regional Assembly for The Network. She was instrumental in saving and reviving the historic center of Palermo. For a time she ran a publishing house, Edizioni della Battaglia, and co-founded a monthly journal for women, Mezzocielo. She is deeply involved in working for the rights of women and, most recently, prisoners. In 1993, when prosecutors in Palermo indicted Giulio Andreotti, who had been prime minister of Italy seven times, the police searched Battaglia’s archives and found two 1979 photographs of Andreotti with an important Mafioso, Nino Salvo, he had denied knowing. Aside from the accounts of turncoats, these pictures were the only physical evidence of this powerful politician’s connections to the Sicilian Mafia. Battaglia herself had forgotten having taken the photograph. Its potential significance was apparent only 15 years after it was taken. In 1999 she received the Photography Lifetime Achievement of the Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography. In 2007 she received the Erich Salomon-Preis, a ‘lifetime achievement’ award of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh) and the most prestigious prize in Germany. In 2009, she was given the Cornell Capa Infinity Award by the International Center of Photography. Battaglia has a cameo appearance in the 2008 Wim Wenders film Palermo Shooting as a photographer. DRAGO MEDIA KOMPANY srl - Via Maria Adelaide, 12 - 00196 Rome, Italy - T: +39 06 45439018/ +39 06 45439132 - [email protected] - www.dragolab.com Media Relations T +39 06 8305 5699 F +39 06 8305 3771 [email protected] enel.com ENEL THE FIRST PRIVATE FOUNDING MEMBER OF MAXXI – NATIONAL MUSEUM OF XXI CENTURY ARTS Enel’s participation as first private founding member in the Fondazione MAXXI will see the company offer it a membership contribution over the next three years, while also partnering the foundation in an ambitious energy efficiency plan for the MAXXI museum in Rome that will highlight sustainability and energy savings. Culture, value and accountability are the guiding principles that have prompted Enel to forge partnerships with leading national and international institutions in order to implement innovative projects that give the public a vision of energy that is orientated towards the future. More specifically, Enel is committed to promoting art and music, putting its emphasis on young artists: in 2003 the Group became both a founding member of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and of the Teatro alla Scala and in 2015 of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Enel’s focus has always been on developing the best solutions for the economic and social development of the countries in which it operates, the enterprises that produce their wealth and the people, who are their driving force. The Group does this acting with respect for the environment and the communities that host its operations. The world has changed. More people have more access to more powerful technologies than ever before. As people's lives become more connected, energy must equip individuals to do more. That's why Enel is committed to opening power to more people, technologies, uses and partners. As a truly global business, Enel is perfectly placed to open power around the world. Enel operates in more than 30 countries, from Europe, to North America, Latin America, Africa and Asia. Enel connects more than 61 million customers to more reliable and increasingly sustainable power, drawing from a net installed capacity of more than 89 GW. Enel runs 1.9 million kilometres of grid network, supplying the largest customer base of any European energy company. 1 Enel SpA – Registered Office: 00198 Rome – Italy - Viale Regina Margherita 137 – Companies Register of Rome and Tax I.D. 00811720580 - R.E.A. 756032 – VAT Code 00934061003 – Stock Capital Euro 9,403,357,795 fully paid-in. Alcantara and MAXXI: Artistic Excellence and Creativity A timeless material, unique of its kind and with vast expressive potential, Alcantara partners with art and architecture to open itself up to new interpretive languages. After the success of the three exhibitions Can you imagine?, Shape your life! and Playful interaction (fully described in a dedicated catalogue) the partnership between the Italian company that has been producing the homonymous trademark material for nearly forty years and the national Museum of 21st century arts goes on. During the three years of its existence, the Alcantara-MAXXI project has seen two institutions – museum and company – work together and apply themselves in a continuous exchanges of skills and experiences. This generated a collaboration-and-dialogue model of enormous creative intensity and, over the years, has involved more than twenty well-established designers and young international talents. “The partnership between MAXXI and Alcantara is strategic and works on a new form of collaboration between a museum and a company,” says Giovanna Melandri, President of the MAXXI Foundation. “While both MAXXI’s and Alcantara’s core business includes supporting and promoting up-and-coming creative talents, this kind of joint venture goes far beyond the traditional concept of sponsorship, opening the way to a creative alliance that enriches all those involved.” “It’s our firm belief,” states Andrea Boragno, President and CEO of Alcantara S.p.A., “that today the meaning of an efficient relationship between a company and a museum is in their concrete will to explore new expressive spheres, disengaging themselves from their role as a simple patron and, rather, choosing to establish a true cooperation, which stems first and foremost from an exchange of knowledge.” This vision is shared by Margherita Guccione, Director, MAXXI Architettura, who states that, “Alcantara-MAXXI is a new model of collaboration between a company and an architecture museum. The interchange gives both of them an opportunity for sincere dialogue focused on a common, innovative vision. Thanks to the involvement of 21 international designers we have over the past three years looked to the future and experimented, in MAXXI’s exhibition spaces, with the creativity and versatility of this incredible material.” Founded in 1972, Alcantara represents a prime example of Italian-produced quality. As registered trademark of Alcantara S.p.A. and result of a unique and proprietary technology, Alcantara® is a highly innovative material, offering an unrivalled combination of sensory, aesthetic and functional qualities. Thanks to its extraordinary versatility, Alcantara is the choice of leading brands in a number of application fields: fashion and accessories, automotive, interior design and home décor, consumer-electronics. These features, together with a serious and certified commitment in terms of sustainability, make Alcantara a true icon of contemporary lifestyle: the lifestyle of those who want to fully enjoy their everyday life, respecting the environment. Since 2009 Alcantara is certified “Carbon Neutral”, having defined, reduced and offset all the CO2 emissions derived from its activity. In 2011 the analysis was extended to the whole product lifecycle, including also use and disposal phases (“from cradle to grave”). To mark out the path of the company in such a field, every year Alcantara draws up and publishes its own Sustainability Report, certified by TÜV SÜD international authority and available also on the corporate website. Headquartered in Milan, Alcantara production site and R&D department are located in Nera Montoro, in the heart of Umbria Region (Terni).