Opening on 27 March from 6 pm to 8 pm in the renovated spaces of the Ex Ospedale Estense is the exhibition Franco Fontana. Modena dentro, a homage to the great photographer on his 90th birthday. Until 16 June2024, the exhibition, curated by FMAV exhibitions and collections director Lorenzo Respi, presents a selection of around 15 works by Fontana, placed side by side with works by contemporary Italian and foreign artists on loan from public and private collections in Italy.
The selection of works by Franco Fontana focuses on pieces commissioned as of the 1970s, for which he was always given carte blanche. The artist’s photos combine the roots of a strongly identified tradition, a model established in many fields – from the history of art to design, from technological innovation to Italian manufacturing, from an eye for beauty to its extension and application in everyday life – and a gaze towards a wider horizon of visual culture and its leading names, an imperceptible iconographic heritage imprinted in shots taken over a 60-plus-year career.
This drive towards the “outside” and research also encouraged Franco Fontana to take a closer look at the works of artists whom he met and got passionate about during his world travels: PietMondrian, MarkRothko, AlbertoBurri and so on, who became unconscious visual references for him, reflected in his way of framing and taking photographs, while remaining within his own sharp linguistic style. Geometry and colour, the visible and above all the invisible, time and instant are the elements into which Franco Fontana breaks down reality and remounts the image of what already exists beyond the camera lens. For an immediate and captivating iconographic comparison, the exhibition features the works of some modern and contemporary artists dear to Franco Fontana, including Mimmo Rotella, Christo, GiuseppeUncini, Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mauro Reggiani and Piero Gilardi.
A collateral event of the exhibition will be a Study Day with scholars, researchers, curators and journalists, on and with Franco Fontana, that will aim to explore his work by putting it into the context of the panorama of the history of Italian photography.
Franco Fontana was born in Modena on 9 December 1933. He started taking photographs as a hobbyin the late 1950s.His first solo exhibition was in Modena in 1968, the year of a substantial turning point in his research.He has published over 60 books, nationally and internationally.He has exhibitedin over 400 group and solo shows in galleries and museums worldwide.His works are found in more than 50 museum collections around the world including the Maxxi in Rome, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Metropolitan Museum in Tokyo, the Museéd'Art Moderne in Paris, the Museo de Arte São Paulo in Brazil, the Kunsthaus Museum in Zurich, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the National Gallery of Beijing in China and the Australian National Gallery in Melbourne, to name but a few.He has received many international awards and accolades.He has worked on an immense number of advertising campaigns, forFiat, Volkswagen, the Italian state railways, Sony, Volvo, Versace, Canon, Kodak, Snam and Robe di Kappa, among others.He has worked on editorials in TimeLife, Vogue USA and Vogue France, Venerdì di Repubblica, Sette del Corriere della Sera, Panorama, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Epoca, Class and the New York Times.He has held workshops and lectures for the Guggenheim Museumin New York, Institute of Technology in Tokyo, Brussels Academy, University of Toronto, then in Rome, Paris, Arles, Rockport, Barcelona, Taipei and many other cities.He has taught courses at the Polytechnic University of Turin and LuissUniversity in Rome.He has collaborated with:the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Centre Georges Pompidouin Paris, Japanese Ministry of Culture and French Ministry of Culture.
