The exhibition features 40 photographs taken by Giovanni Chiaramonte between 1980 and the early 2000s: a distillation of his complex work around the portrayal of landscapes and cityscapes, one that came about after much thought.
His explorations take him on a long journey to the roots of our civilisation, from the memories of Athens and Rome, through Europe, to the Bosphorus and Jerusalem – a stop laden with meaning on his path to the depths of history. Italy serves as a vantage point – its territory, a layering of cultures and civilisations, offers an overview of the history of the entire Western world.
For Chiaramonte, to take a picture – and therefore to know – is to uncover something that he might have ignored up until that moment, yet he embraces as his own; it is a way of dealing with reality. His photography is an archaeology of landscape – the artist digs through the layers of reality in order to grasp even the most hidden signs. This is the same spirit that drives him through the heart of America, which – from Los Angeles, to Miami, to Mexico – seems to inherit the legacy of our culture.
The art of Chiaramonte – which was always intertwined with existential and spiritual exploration – is a layered text that tells of a long and difficult journey through the images in order to build a discourse that, rather than merely telling about the world, uncovers the foundations of human perception. It is that infinite realism to which the artist himself refers in describing his work, providing us at the same time with an interpretive key to his visual imagination. This fitting phrase – the title of this exhibition – emphasises the strength that lies in the truth of his images, which depict a given place and time while never focussing their attention on the topicality of the event, never documenting this or that location or occurrence; rather, they are symbols, the starting points from which to move forward and take those images to the next level of understanding.
“Reality has always appeared to me as undetermined and impossible to determine. Trying to embrace reality in its entirety has set me free from all possible determination, generated me to the art of life and opened up a vision of existence that, being unthought and unthinkable, is always new.”
Giovanni Chiaramonte’s words, just like his pictures, have never been more alive and true than today. This is the reason why, one year after his passing, the Diocesan Museum wishes to pay homage to the work of this master of Italian contemporary photography.
