Genoa as seen by a 19th century photographer and a contemporary painter in an exhibition comparing them

From March 11 to May 21, 2023, the Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art in Genoa is hosting the exhibition Endless Genoa. Glimpses of the City between Noack and Bayter, born from the collaboration between the museum itself and the Documentation Center for the History, Art and Image of Genoa - DOCSAI, with the aim of reflecting on the idea of the city through its image reproduced by two artists from different backgrounds and historical circles: the nineteenth-century vision of photographer Alfred Noack and the contemporary vision of artist Federico Romero Bayter. Starting with a selection of photographs of Genoa signed by Alfred Noack (Dresden, 1833 - Genoa, 1895), one of the most famous photographers active in Italy in the second half of the 19th century, a dialogue was designed with large oil canvases made expressly for the exhibition by Colombian artist Federico Romero Bayter (Santa Fè di Bogatá, 1981), who was named “Genoa’s talent in 2019.”

The exhibition design features large stage backdrops that expand the photos to almost real spaces, where visitors can enter to admire both the nineteenth-century originals and numerous albumen prints and the personal interpretation that comes from a contemporary artist inspired by the proposed urban subjects.

The rooms on the ground and second floors of the museum display about 20 of Bayter’s canvases, about 40 albumen reproductions, a dozen original plates, and five large-format reproductions of as many photographs. To display the original plates, it was necessary to design two showcases with suitable supports and with a backlighting system such that the materials would not be damaged, just as for the display of the albumins, a support was designed that allows the photos to be perfectly read and preserved.

“A new project that originates from the synergy between the Villa Croce Museum and DOCSAI, which have joined forces to give us back an infinite and multifaceted image of the city, borrowed from the vision of two artists who differ in periods and art forms,” comments Genoa City Council Deputy Councilor Barbara Grosso. “This is an impressive exhibition that relates the ancient images of the great Noack with the interpretation of them by Bayter, a brilliant contemporary artist who four years ago earned the title of Genoa’s Talent in the field. So I thank the curators for giving the city this exhibition, which will certainly be a great success among the Genoese and visitors.”

“The exhibition dedicated to Bayter, whom the municipality has named ’Talent of Genoa’ in 2019,” says Anna Orlando, art historian and member of the culture table wanted by the mayor, “is part of the programming of these last four years, interspersed moreover by the silence of the months of pandemic, understood as the valorization of the historical names of the art of the last century, but also of the young people who today show innovation, testifying to the strong cultural value of our territory. Another common thread in the programming of our Museum of Contemporary Art is the networking and comparison with works from the Civic Collections, and in this case the original dialogue between Bayter’s large canvases and Alfredo Noak’s masterful photographs preserved at DOCSAI curated by Andreana Serra, head of this important collection, is exemplary.”

For all information, you can visit the official website of Musei di Genova.

Pictured: a work by Federico Romero Bayter

Genoa as seen by a 19th century photographer and a contemporary painter in an exhibition comparing them

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