Until Sept. 13, 2026, the Saint-Bénin Center in Aosta is hostingBeyond the Visible, an exhibition dedicated to Mario Giacomelli (Senigallia, 1925 - 2000), one of the protagonists of 20th-century Italian photography. The exhibition, promoted by the Education, Culture and Identity Policies Department of the Autonomous Region of Valle d’Aosta and conceived by Electa in collaboration with the Mario Giacomelli Archive, aims to restore to the public and critics the complexity and stratification of a work that eludes canonical definitions. It is curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi and Katiuscia Biondi Giacomelli, with the aim of presenting an interpretation of photography that goes beyond mere documentation, highlighting its poetic and lyrical dimension.
Giacomelli, although self-taught and with a strong passion for painting and literature, established himself as a central figure in Italian visual culture of the second half of the 20th century. His production is situated in a transitional period, between modernity marked by realism and the first manifestations of postmodern sensibility, which dissolved the boundaries between genres and shifted attention from documentary objectivity to the subjectivity of experience. His photography is distinguished by an original approach that rejects both the rigidity of classical reportage and the abstraction of lyrical realism, generating a language that blends documentation and transfiguration, testimony and invention.
The exhibition explores in particular how Giacomelli was a protagonist of a season in which photography definitively emancipated itself from subordination to the major arts, asserting its own poetic autonomy. The images come from concrete contexts-a hospice, a seminary, rural life-but are transformed into true inner visions, offering a unique point of view on reality. The curatorial choice favors a non-chronological path, designed to evoke the artist’s mental structure rather than a simple biographical narrative. The order of the works aims to interweave visions, references and resonances, restoring the complexity of Giacomelli’s work.
The exhibition includes about 180 images, including vintage prints and test prints, flanked by manuscripts and poems by the artist. The works are organized in three sections, juxtaposed according to poetic, thematic and formal affinities, allowing us to grasp Giacomelli’s photographic language in its vitality and continuous transformation. This interweaving highlights the recurring themes in his production: abstraction and matter, landscape and the body, poetry and autobiography, tracing a unified narrative despite the variety of subjects and techniques. The exhibition is accompanied by a book-catalogue, published by Electa in the Electaphoto monograph series.
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| Mario Giacomelli, photography that exceeds the visible at the Saint-Bénin Center in Aosta |
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