FotoGrafia- International Rome’s
Festival VII edition “Seeing normality. Photography portrays daily life.”

“I bought me a cat”



curated by Cristina Ferraiuolo e Ninni Romeo

collective exhibition of:

Liv Carlé Mortensen, Charlotte Hjorth-Rohde, Sylvia Jouve, Birgitta Lund, Denmark; Benedetta Rogers, England; Arja Katariina Hyytiainen, Finland; Nathalie Biet, Nathalie Desserme, Gabrielle Duplantier, Florence Poulain, Margot Wallard, France; Silvia Otte, Stephanie Rössing, Germany; Ilaria Abignente di Frassello, Gilda Aloisi, Valentina Barzaghi, Guia Besana, Barbara Capanni, Chiara Cremonini, Alberta Cuccia, Antonia Dettori, Elisa D’Ippolito, Cristina Ferraiuolo, Zazie Gnecchi Ruscone, Alice Grassi, Chicca Lami, Arianna Manuello, Simo Neri, Lina Pallotta, Ninni Romeo, Monica Sagaria Rossi, Sveva Taverna, Italy; Ingvild Vaale Arnesen, Margaret M. de Lange, Norway; Martyna Bec, Radka Franczak, Ewelina Niemczura, Poland; Ida Andersson, Sweden; Graziella Antonini, Sandra Nydegger, Ester Vonplon, Switzerland; Farzana Wahidy, Afghanistan; Liliana Contrera, Argentina; Alexandra Catiere, Belarus; Diana Caminiti, Brazil; Lee Yanor, Israel; Alia Al-Ghossein, Liban; Rula Halawani, Palestine; Zanele Muholi, South Africa; Heather Musto, United States.

Fifty women photographers from different countries of the world; works by well-known and lesser known artists including young, up-and coming photographers, each represented with a single photograph.

“…..Dailyness is a vast and personal concept, as presented by the curators, Cristina Ferraiuolo and Ninni Romeo, two photographers who have assembled a small but qualitatively solid group of international women photographers under the umbrella of a non-profit association, stimulated by the creative experience of the Granieri workshops.

These images – rapid, essential, never complacent, non-formalistic, relevant and genuine glimpses of feminine lives - reveal the existence of interior turmoil, a search for harmony, a sundering of certain distances. Eyes full of demands. A bound breast. Physical contact with one’s children. A mattress bearing traces of paid love. A dancing back. Challenging looks. Too skinny legs. A naked family. A hug. Going far away. A dog’s kiss. A pregnant belly. An unmade bed. Reflections of thoughts on water. A devotion to life, its passions, its shadows. A perception of intimacy. Solitude and fear. Mystery. Diane Arbus wrote: “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know”.

As women, we understand less and less about ourselves. We try to change, to find ourselves, to keep pace with the speed of our times, not to succumb to illusions, to listen to ourselves as much with our heads as with our hearts. We try to be more mobile, open and generous. In this attempt, we encounter bewilderment and feeling, as revealed by this body of true and intense photographs. Feminine.”

From the text of Leonetta Bentivoglio

vernissage  thursday 15th may, h 19.00

many of the artists will be present at the vernissage

from h.22.00  slideshows of some photographers of the collective

b>gallery

piazza di Santa Cecilia 16, Roma. 

till sunday 8th of june 2008

Every day:  h.10.00 – h.22.00

With the support of:

b>gallery, Piazza di Santa Cecilia 16, Roma.
Tel.+390658334365 www.b-gallery.it
Press office: Daniele Pedone
d.pedone@b-ad.it 
tel. +39/06/21704990

Obiettivo Granieri www.obiettivogranieri.net

Press office Marcello Amoruso obiettivo.granieri@gmail.com

Photography. A point of view, fragments of emotion; evoking a place, a person, dialogues, shapes, relationships. Every photograph is an aesthetic and expressive universe.

Feminine photography. Why feminine? Why emphasize gender as “difference”? To what degree can being a woman – a woman who observes – define the distance from maleness, or, better yet, from a mix of genders? Why present oneself as a sort of anomaly?

In recent years there has been much discussion of “feminine art”. Is it really necessary, useful, or even appropriate, to establish separate territories, thus restoring the idea of boundaries intended to shelter a weaker entity that demands recognition and protection? Why this need to establish a sort of free zone, with fenced-in, non invasive areas? Protection of the species… Discussions on feminism, especially in its most recent form, have often addressed this point, this open question. There are always potential objections to categorizing the feminine as such, be it in the realm of aesthetics or that of culture in the wider sense - which includes politics. This has been the case, for example, in the major exhibition on women’s painting through history, held recently at the Palazzo Reale in Milan.

The current photographic exhibition “I bought me a cat” could provide an answer to such objections. It may do this specifically because the theme is everyday life, as perceived through unrestricted, subjective glimpses. It is more than ever in this type of context that such “difference” can run the risk of exposing itself. This is where an otherness that is recognizable and concrete may be revealed. Because the real difference between man and woman is truly visible in the movement and rhythm of everyday life. In this era of constant and tumultuous role transformations, women’s sense of time has become compressed and out of phase, where social and work functions co-exist with personal ones that are genetically unavoidable, since women give birth and nourish their offspring. But this argument is too vast to bring up without risking over-simplification. Suffice it to say that women are approaching the third millennium torn between work requirements and family needs, imitation of male professional models and the inevitable duties and needs of procreation. Identities are implanted and at times implode. At times a balance is found. In any event, the quest can be painful.

The photographs in this exhibition reveal such pain, each in its own way, though never directly. Nothing is explicit or declared. There is no manifesto. “Dailyness” is a vast and personal concept, as presented by the curators, Cristina Ferraiuolo and Ninni Romeo, two photographers who have assembled a small but qualitatively solid group of international women photographers under the umbrella of a non-profit association, stimulated by the creative experience of the Granieri workshops.

These images – rapid, essential, never complacent, non-formalistic, relevant and genuine glimpses of feminine lives - reveal the existence of interior turmoil, a search for harmony, a sundering of certain distances. Eyes full of demands. A bound breast. Physical contact with one’s children. A mattress bearing traces of paid love. A dancing back. Challenging looks. Too skinny legs. A naked family. A hug. Going far away. A dog’s kiss. A pregnant belly. An unmade bed. Reflections of thoughts on water. A devotion to life, its passions, its shadows. A perception of intimacy. Solitude and fear. Mystery. Diane Arbus wrote: “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know”.

As women, we understand less and less about ourselves. We try to change, to find ourselves, to keep pace with the speed of our times, not to succumb to illusions, to listen to ourselves as much with our heads as with our hearts. We try to be more mobile, open and generous. In this attempt, we encounter bewilderment and feeling, as revealed by this body of true and intense photographs. Feminine.

Leonetta Bentivoglio