A city, a tale • Gabriele Basilico, 1978-2012

Gabriele Basilico (Milan, 1944-2013) is among the most internationally renowned Italian photographic artists. His work can be found in the collections of prestigious museums all over the world, and more than 120 books and catalogues have been published to date. After graduating in architecture in 1973, he took an increasingly analytical and in-depth look at the industrial landscape and urban areas, recording the mutations that mark the passage of time and characterize the inexorable process of the anthropization of places and, in particular, cities.
The exhibition proposed by the Italian Cultural Institute in Beirut is a valuable example of Basilico’s professional and artistic career. It considers both approaches as almost inseparable in Basilico’s work, which over the years has been guided by a single vision that is the result of an osmotic process: ultimately, the awareness of a look at the world that only experienced artists can conquer.

The exhibition traces Basilico’s artistic career, starting with “Milano.
Ritratti di fabbriche” [Milan. Portraits of Factories], shot from 1978 to 1980 and exhibited at the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan in 1983, a solo exhibition that established him as one of the most innovative figures on the national and international photographic scene in the early 1980s.It continues with a series of images produced for the photographic mission coordinated by DATAR (Délégation à l’Aménagement et à l’Action Régionale) on behalf of the French government:these include some of his most famous photographs like “Le Tréport – Mers les Bains” and “Ault”, both shot in 1985.

Simultaneously, Basilico worked on a collection of European ports: Genoa, Hamburg and Antwerp were part of the exhibition “Seaports”, which won the “Prix Mois de la Photo” in Paris in 1990.

Beirut is another important chapter in Basilico’s work. The Milanese artist visited the Middle Eastern capital four times between 1991 and 2011. The first time, he was invited by the Hariri Foundation, together with Josef Koudelka, Raymond Depardon, Robert Frank, René Burri and Fouad Elkoury. One year after the end of the civil war that had devastated Lebanon from 1975 to 1990, he found the city destroyed, almost wiped out. After an initial moment of confusion, in which he wondered how to deal with this tormented landscape, Basilico recorded the city’s wounds and produced some of his most famous photographs, in which he reveals the clear, respectful and fair approach that seems to be the perfect synthesis of his thinking, made even more crude and direct by the dramatic nature of the place and the events.

Beirut is another important chapter in Basilico’s work. The Milanese artist visited the Middle Eastern capital four times between 1991 and 2011. The first time, he was invited by the Hariri Foundation, together with Josef Koudelka, Raymond Depardon, Robert Frank, René Burri and Fouad Elkoury. One year after the end of the civil war that had devastated Lebanon from 1975 to 1990, he found the city destroyed, almost wiped out. After an initial moment of confusion, in which he wondered how to deal with this tormented landscape, Basilico recorded the city’s wounds and produced some of his most famous photographs, in which he reveals the clear, respectful and fair approach that seems to be the perfect synthesis of his thinking, made even more crude and direct by the dramatic nature of the place and the events.

Basilico returned to Beirut in 2003, 2008 and 2011 for a new photographic mission, coordinated by Fouad Elkoury with Robert Polidori and Klavdij Sluban, to find a new city, largely reconstructed, of which he offers an interpretation aligned with the research he has carried out and the assignments he has received over the last twenty years – not surprisingly exhibited in colour, a variant from the black and white, increasingly used in the new millennium. In this long parenthesis, which opens and closes the cycle dedicated to Beirut, Basilico adds colour, but above all he widens and raises his gaze. He continues to pay
great attention to the architectural object, to the study of its forms and volumes, which, through photography, make it almost tangible, certainly closer and more immediate. This is evidenced by the images in this selection, from Paris, Palermo, Barcelona, Porto, but also from Bilbao, Naples and Berlin, where, whatever the quality of the architecture, we never cease to be amazed by the obsessive search for a formal balance: the overlapping perspectives – as in the case of Palermo and Montecarlo -, the light, shadow and signs of the present – the cars in Barcelona and of history – Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, not only complete the visual construction of the picture, but also place it in context, turning the photograph into a document.

A document that becomes an artwork.

At the same time, particularly in the 2007 campaigns in Moscow and San Francisco – where he was invited by the MoMA to photograph Silicon Valley – the field of vision encompassed by the large-format shot of the analogue camera expands and rises as a result of a new awareness acquired by the artist. Choosing a point of view is no longer just the result of a long and precise survey, but the final act of an experience that the photographer has lived fully
and with infinite generosity and respect for the place and for those who animate it, live it and transform it every day. A new fundamental step is added to the observation and documentation ritual, one which coincides with a more mature artistic practice: a kind of participating contemplation, not endured, and different than enchantment. That same wise gaze that we recognize in the photographs of Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul and, above all, in the nocturnal photographs of Milan, the city he belonged to.

This exhibition is organized by the Italian Cultural Institute in collaboration with Beirut Art Center and the Gabriele Basilico Archive, and is under the patronage of the Italian Embassy in Lebanon.