Paolo Pellegrin is known today as one of the world’s leading documentary and conflict photographers. A winner of many awards and the Robert Capa Gold Medal (among many others), he has been a full member of Magnum Photos since 2001. The career‐spanning exhibition PAOLO PELLEGRIN – UN’ANTOLOGIA at the House of Photography sheds new light on his creative vision. At its core is Paolo Pellegrin’s reportage photography, drawn from his personal archive and featuring work created throughout his career from the early 1990s to the present day. However, this is not a conventional retrospective.
UN’ANTOLOGIA, was curated by Germano Celant, a celebrated Italian art historian, for the MAXXI, Rome. The exhibition, which will be extended by further works in Hamburg, is a meditation on the impact, consequences and legacy of the human condition, as witnessed by Pellegrin, and an exploration of his artistic vision. The combination surprises, challenges and fascinates in turn.
More than 200 analogue and digital prints, some vintage, some unpublished, are displayed in the exhibition accompanied by the bare minimum of interpretive text. Instead, the photographs are contextualized by occasional video clips shot by the photographer and a fascinating installation – created in the gallery by Pellegrin himself – which uses notebooks, sketches, prints, negatives, transparencies and printed ephemera to showcase the exhaustive process of visual research which underpins Pellegrin’s working practice. The interactive nature of the installation entices the visitor to browse and investigate, thereby experiencing something of the way in which Pellegrin works.
UN’ANTOLOGIA is a fitting tribute to Pellegrin’s lifelong engagement with the human condition, but it also serves as an important reminder that reportage photography was, is, and always will be far more than simply a medium for news and information.
THE EXHIBITION WAS ORIGINATED BY MAXXI, ROME, WITH CANON AS DIGITAL IMAGING PARTNER
