Turin, Italy, photographer Walter Niedermayr is on display at the Camera center

In the main rooms of Turin’s Camera Center, Walter Niedermayr. Transformations, a solo exhibition by Walter Niedermayr (Bolzano, 1952) that through Oct. 17, 2021, through focuses on a body of work created in the last two decades of his career, explores the theme of changes in space.

Curated by Walter Guadagnini, with the collaboration of Claudio Composti and Giangavino Pazzola, the exhibition includes the last two decades of artistic research by one of the most important contemporary Italian photographers. Through the recurring themes of his work such as alpine landscapes, architecture and the relationship between public and private space, the author’s interest in the investigation of places not only from a geographical but also from a social point of view is highlighted. Although in continuity with the legacy of the Italian photographic tradition that sees landscape as the primary interpretive key to society, Niedermayr’s visual research is relevant for its ability to reread this subject and renew it both conceptually and formally. Indeed, for the South Tyrolean photographer today, physical space cannot be approached with an exclusive documentary intention, but appears as the pivot of a transformative relationship between ecology, architecture and society. In some of the works in the seriesAlpine Landschaften(Alpine Landscapes), for example, the presence of man in the depiction of landscape is interpreted as a yardstick for measuring the proportions of Alpine panoramas, and at the same time as a political yardstick of his intervention in the metamorphosis of natural balances. This discourse is also emphasized in works such asPortraits, where snow cannons filmed during the summer season (thus inactive) become ambiguous presences inhabiting the landscape.

With about fifty large-format works, often presented in the diptych and triptych formula and characterized by low-contrast and neutral tones, the exhibition tells us about a simultaneity of human and non-human activities, which coexist and find an unstable balance in constant change, as evidenced by the series Raumfolgen(Spaces With/Sequences).

Also on view in the exhibition are two never-before-seen diptychs created as a result of a commission that allowed Niedermayr to shoot, earlier this year, at the construction site of Palazzo Turinetti in Turin, which will become the fourth home of Intesa Sanpaolo’s Gallerie d’Italia. Due to open in early 2022, the museum will be dedicated primarily to photography and video art. The presence of these images again recounts the collaboration between CAMERA and Intesa Sanpaolo (Founding Member and Institutional Partner of CAMERA) through which the exhibition Nel mirino. Italy and the World in the Intesa Sanpaolo Publifoto Archive 1939-1981.

The exhibition, accompanied by a catalog published by Silvana Editoriale, is produced in collaboration with the Ncontemporary gallery in Milan and with the support of Ediltecno Restauri, Building S.p.a., Sipal S.p.a, Pro-Tec Milano, GAe Engineering and BMS Progetti.

Walter Niedermayr is a photographer and artist whose research has been investigating the intense and ambiguous relationship between man and the environment since 1985. Since 1988 he has exhibited his photographic and video works in public institutions, museums and galleries. His work has been exhibited in prestigious cultural institutions and events including Fotografia Europea in Reggio Emilia (2018), Aut. Architektur und Tirol in Innsbruck (2017), Galéria Mesta Bratislavy in Bratislava (2015), Italian Cultural Institute in Paris (2012), Fondazione Fotografia in Modena (2011), Museion in Bolzano (2004), Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart (2003), Centre pour l’image contemporaine in Geneva (2000), White Cube in London (1998), Vorarlberg Museum in Bregenz (1992) and numerous other public and private spaces. His latest series conceived during the 2020 lockdown, and commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, is on display at Palazzo Barberini in Rome. His works have also been presented in the past in group exhibitions, including those at MAST in Bologna (2017), MAXXI in Rome (2016), the Venice International Architecture Biennale (2014 and 2010), the Fotomuseum in Winterthur (2013), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and the Denver Art Museum (2011), Manifesta7 in Bolzano (2008), Centre Pompidou in Paris (2006), MART in Rovereto (2003) and many others. The artist’s works are held in numerous international collections, including MoMa in New York, Tate Modern in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, MAXXI in Rome, MOCA in Los Angeles, Fondation Cartier in Paris, Intesa Sanpaolo, and UBS Art Collection. Between 2011 and 2014, he taught art photography at the Free University of Bolzano.

For all information, you can visit the official CAMERA website.

Pictured: Walter Niedermayr, Hintertuxergletscher 23/2004. Diptych, 131x211 cm. Ph credit: Walter Niedermayr Ncontemporary Milan, Galerie Nordenhake Berlin/Stockholm, Galerie Johann Widauer Innsbruck

Turin, Italy, photographer Walter Niedermayr is on display at the Camera center

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