From Sicily, ravaged by Mafia violence, to images that challenge the boundary between photography and reality: CAMERA—the Italian Center for Photography in Turin— is dedicating a dual exhibition to two leading figures in Italian photography, Letizia Battaglia and Davide Tranchina. Starting October 17, 2026, visitors will be able to explore two distinct exhibitions, united by the image’s ability to document the world, interpret it, and challenge its representations.
The first exhibition, Letizia Battaglia. The Work, 1970–2020, will be on view through February 7, 2027, and will trace the photographer’s fifty-year career through more than two hundred images. The second, *Davide Tranchina. Light-years Away*, will remain open through January 6, 2027, and will present some key milestones in the artist’s creative journey, culminating in a previously unseen work created specifically for CAMERA’s exhibition spaces.
The Palermo depicted by Letizia Battaglia is a city of many souls, marked by the mafia but also by the vitality of its communities, the strength of its youth, religious traditions, and the poetry of everyday gestures. The retrospective *Letizia Battaglia: The Work, 1970–2020* aims to convey the complexity of the vision of one of the most important figures in 20th-century photography.
Curated by Walter Guadagnini, the exhibition is co-produced by CAMERA and Jeu de Paume and organized in collaboration withthe Letizia Battaglia Archive. The exhibition spans fifty years of her work, highlighting the variety of themes addressed by the photographer: from reportage on the Mafia to religious festivals, from portraits of ordinary people to the most intimate aspects of life in Sicily, and even images taken inside a psychiatric hospital. The photographs capture the contradictions of the era and society without losing sight of individual people, their bodies, and their stories. The documentary dimension is thus intertwined with a profound human sensitivity, making Battaglia’s work both a testimony to reality and, at the same time, a form of direct engagement with the events of her time.
After stops at the Jeu de Paume in Tours, the Les Rencontres d’Arles festival, and the Museo Civico San Domenico in Forlì, the exhibition arrives in Turin with an itinerary enriched by materials that expand the narrative of his career. Alongside the photographs, twenty-two magazines with which Battaglia collaborated—and which, in some cases, he helped found and edit—will be on display. The exhibition is rounded out by a documentary film dedicated to his life, which also explores the personal and professional dimensions of his story.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog published by Dario Cimorelli Editore. The main partners of the exhibition are Intesa Sanpaolo and Gallerie d’Italia – Turin.
CAMERA’s Project Room hosts Davide Tranchina. “Light-years Away,” a solo exhibition dedicated to over twenty years of work by the Bolognese artist, born in 1970 and one of the leading voices in contemporary Italian photography.
Curated by Walter Guadagnini and organized in collaboration with the Studio G7 Gallery in Bologna, the exhibition traces some key moments in Tranchina’s career, an artist who has developed his practice through the transition from analog to digital photography. At the heart of his work lie the ambiguities of the photographic image, the mechanisms through which it is constructed, and the complex relationship between what appears in a photograph and the reality to which it refers.
The Turin exhibition offers a reinterpretation of this exploration, highlighting the key stages that have defined the artist’s language and his approach to questioning the medium of photography. The exhibition culminates in a previously unseen work, conceived and created specifically for the Project Room’s spaces.
The project is part of a body of work that has led Tranchina to participate in major exhibitions, including his recent participation in the Rome Quadriennale. The catalog published by Dario Cimorelli Editore complements the initiative, offering a further resource for exploring the artist’s practice.
With the exhibitions dedicated to Letizia Battaglia and Davide Tranchina, CAMERA brings together two different approaches to photography. On the one hand, Battaglia’s direct and engaged gaze, which documents society and its wounds through individual stories; on the other, Tranchina’s exploration, which investigates the very nature of the image and its ability to represent reality. These two paths, though operating on different levels, demonstrate how photography can simultaneously serve as a testimony, an interpretation, and a tool for understanding.
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| Letizia Battaglia and Davide Tranchina: Photography Reflects Reality—A Dual Exhibition at CAMERA Torino |
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