The Galleria d’Arte Maggiore g.a.m. presents a tribute to Bologna, a city to which it is deeply connected and where the gallery was founded in 1978 by Franco and Roberta Calarota. The homage, which opens today at 6 p.m. at its venue in Via D’Azeglio 15, unfolds through the gaze of photographer Lorenzo Capellini.
The exhibition offers an itinerary through several symbolic places of the city, in some cases closely intertwined with the gallery’s own history. An essential starting point is Capellini’s photographs taken inside Giorgio Morandi’s house in Via Fondazza—a space suspended in time, where light, objects and silence still preserve the discreet presence of the master. Capellini lingers on the objects used for Morandi’s famous still lifes and on the simplicity of the furnishings, capturing silent glimpses that allow one to imagine the Bolognese artist moving among small repeated gestures, attention to detail and infinite dedication.
Capellini, born in Genoa in 1939, began his long career in London, where he lived for several years. Then came reportage assignments around the world for the Corriere della Sera and other publications, and exhibitions in every latitude.
From 1974 to 1978 he was also the official photographer of the Biennale, documenting key editions under the presidency of Carlo Ripa di Meana. The work produced a visual heritage of enormous value—so much so that the Historical Archive of Contemporary Arts of the Biennale acquired his entire body of images. The photographer later alternated environmental and animal-protection campaigns—from Canada to the Pacific Ocean to South Africa—with work in the world of opera, from La Scala in Milan to the Teatro Comunale in Bologna. He has published more than 80 books, including a series created with writer friends about the places they love. Included in this series is the volume Bologna. Fragments of Emotions, created together with Lorenzo Sassoli de Bianchi and published by Minerva. During the recent presentation at the Salaborsa Library, Capellini said: “For Bologna I wanted to work with a friend like Lorenzo. I waited for him to write the text, then I took the photographs—I listened to what he had written.” Capellini has in fact worked often in Bologna in the past, with L’anima del Corpo in 2004 at Palazzo d’Accursio, with his participation in the major collective exhibition on the nude at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, and with the book Bologna. A Walk with Eugenio Riccomini.
Alongside the images from Morandi’s house, the exhibition at g.a.m.—a sentimental itinerary through yesterday’s and today’s Bologna, on view until next January 18—also opens up to other essential places in the city. These include photographs dedicated to the Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Niccolò dell’Arca, housed in the Church of Santa Maria della Vita, and the historic interiors of Majani which, with their period furnishings and the scent of chocolate, evoke a Bologna that reveals all its traditional artisan expertise. And then the historic Libreria Nanni, long a crossroads of ideas, voices and encounters, and the Hospices—places of care and profound humanity—funded by the Fondazione Hospice MT. Chiantore Seragnoli Onlus.