MARIO GIACOMELLI – “PAESAGGIO”.
In our continuing series of online exhibitions, this month we are focusing on the photographic landscapes of Mario Giacomelli, collectively known as “Paesaggio”.
Recognized as one of the greatest Italian photographers, Mario Giacomelli (1925–2000) supported himself running his own print shop in Senigallia. Although initially interested in painting and poetry, by the mid 1950s Giacomelli became completely focused on photography. Giving new meaning to the term “Sunday painter”, however, for the next four decades Giacomelli only photographed on Sundays when his shop was closed.
His subjects were largely the landscape and people of the Marche region of central Italy which Giacomelli transformed into deeply personal and distinctive prints. Known for his gritty black-and-white aesthetic and unconventional approach to both taking and printing his photographs, Giacomelli’s work blurs the line between documentation and expressionism. The Paesaggio, created primarily from the 1950s through the 1980s, were not merely photographs of the land — they make an interesting parallel to the American land art movement of the time with Giacomelli inscribing himself into the earth and transforming the literal into the imaginative and metaphorical.
The Paesaggio series picture fields carved by tractors, furrows deepened by time, and soil shaped as much by man as by nature. His elevated and aerial viewpoints — either achieved by shooting from hillsides or taken from a friend’s small plane — compress distance and distort scale, rendering the terrain somewhat abstract, almost calligraphic. The stark contrasts of black and white, pushed and manipulated in the darkroom, create landscapes that feel etched, emphasizing line and texture along with the seasonal rhythm of farm work.
In the Paesaggio, Giacomelli invites the viewer not just to see the land but to feel its presence, its history, and its continual transformation. By doing so he created one of the most original and memorable bodies of work in photography.
For more information please contact us at info@danzigergallery.com