Mario Giacomelli

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Mario Giacomelli (born August 1, 1925 in Senigallia in the Marche region , Italy ; † November 25, 2000 there ) was an Italian photographer .

Life

Mario Giacomelli was born the oldest of three brothers. In 1934, when he was nine years old, his father died. Since then, his mother has worked in a laundry near Senigallia Hospice . Years later he recorded one of his most famous series in this hospice.

He grew up in the poorest of circumstances. At the age of 13 (1938) he left school and decided to support the family financially. He began training as a typesetter and printer in his hometown. He later became a partner and owner of a printing house in the center of Senigallia.

On April 24, 1954, he married Anna Berluti.

He worked in the printing shop all his life and made a living from it. He only took photos in his free time. In 1995 he received the culture award of the German Society for Photography .

Mario Giacomelli died of cancer .

plant

On Christmas Eve 1953 he bought his first camera with the money he had originally saved for a used motorcycle (800 lire ) .

The next day he took his first pictures on Senigallia beach. But since he didn't know how to operate the camera, he could only use two of the negatives . One of these photos shows a slipper bathed in sea water.

Up until then he had tried to paint and write. However, he was not satisfied with his results. Photography first seemed to be the right tool to him. Although he was not a fan of technical devices and never used a light meter , he recognized for himself that the photo camera, this seemingly soulless technical device, offered him an extension of his possibilities of expression (cf. Horvat). He found an intensive graphic imagery early on, which gave new impetus to photography in his day. His style is unique and unmistakable.

He is represented with his black and white photos in many museums and galleries around the world.

Series (selection)

He always worked in series. The majority of his pictures were taken in Senigallia or in the vicinity of his homeland.

He often spent a long time preparing for a series. So he went to the Senigallia hospice for a whole year so that the residents there could get used to him. Only when he was familiar did he take his camera with him. Only in the series Zingari (Gypsies, 1958) and Mattatoio (Schlachthaus, 1960) did he deviate from this principle. With the Gypsies he had about half an hour to record before he was forbidden to make further recordings. According to his own statement, he only lasted a few minutes in the slaughterhouse, then he had to flee and avoided this place from then on.

1955–1957: Vita d'ospizio

The pictures in this series show the residents of the Senigallia hospice. Time, transience and age preoccupied and accompanied him in many of his series. This is especially true for the hospice pictures:

"My concerns are time and old age. There is an ongoing conflict between me and time, a permanent war, and the hospice is one of my enemy's faces. "

“My concern is time and age. There is an ongoing conflict between me and time, a constant war, and the hospice is one of the faces of my enemy. "

- Mario Giacomelli

Very emotional images of the residents were created in the hospice. In these photographs we look into the face of approaching death. The effect of the pictures is enhanced by their hard contrast . People are shown in their environment, which is anything but comfortable. But these pictures are not meant to be social criticism. For him, each of these recordings was like a self-portrait (see interview with Frank Horvat ). He calls a second series on the hospice, which was created 1966–1968, Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi (for example: Death will come and he will have your eyes) based on a poem by Cesare Pavese (1908–1950).

The hospice pictures were always the most important to him:

"If I had to choose amongst all the photos I've done, to just keep one body of work, it would most certainly be the hospice."

"If I had to choose between all the photos I took and I was only allowed to keep one job, it would surely be the hospice"

- Mario Giacomelli

1957, 1959: Scanno

He rarely left his hometown. However, several times (1957, 1959 and 1995) he visited Scanno , a mountain village in Abruzzo , about 270 km south of Senigallia. There arose archaic images of people in this village, where the traditional life at that time was still intact and alive. He chose a long exposure time for his photos to make this place a little more “magical”.

John Szarkowski , who was responsible for photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1962 to 1991 , showed the series “Scanno” to the American public in 1964. After Giacomelli had already been exhibited at the Photokina in Cologne in 1963 , this exhibition marked his international breakthrough.

In 1995 he visited Scanno for the third time - but this time he did not take any pictures. Again it was the time that worried him: the old Scanno, as he had photographed it, no longer existed, the modern world had also found its way here.

1961–1963: Io non ho mani che mi accarezzino il volto (for example: I have no hands to caress my face)

In 1961–1963 he took pictures in a seminary. He initially called the series "Pretini" (young priests). However, it became known under the title “Io non ho mani che mi accarezzino il volto” based on a poem by David Maria Turoldo (1916–1992), a contemporary of Giacomelli.

As in the hospice, he first attended the seminar for a year to get to know the seminarians. The pictures show the young seminarians in their breaks, while they dance carefree, are exuberant, frolic or have a snowball fight, which is certainly unusual in Senigallia.

As in Scanno, the photos were taken with a relatively long exposure time, which made the movements of the prospective priests clear and thus brought dynamism to the images. In addition, he had increased the contrast so much again that in many pictures there are almost only black and white.

In some of these photographs the seminarians can be seen smoking cigars. Giacomelli had brought it for them to see what would happen. After he sent these photos to a competition, he was forbidden from entering the seminar by the seminar leaders. His comment on this:

"[...] I won an important prize, but I never set foot in that seminary again."

"I had won an important prize, but I was not allowed to enter the seminar again."

- Mario Giacomelli

In 1963 this series was exhibited at the Ferrania booth during the Photokina in Cologne.

1964–1966: La buona terra ( The good earth , based on a book by Pearl S. Buck )

In this series he shows the life of the farm workers in his homeland. He had accompanied a befriended farming family for several years. The pictures show people on their way to work, at the harvest, at a wedding. We see their children, we see their home. During this work he had again given himself a lot of time to get to know people so that the recordings seem natural and natural. His recording and darkroom technology also produced very high-contrast images here. The hard contrast fits the hard life of the country folk, which is repeated year after year.

1955–1980: Presa di coscienza sulla natura (landscapes)

He photographed the landscape around him over a very long period of time. He often took the photos from the air. The approval for such recordings was held by a pilot friend whose camera he used.

Not infrequently he asked a farmer to use his machines to create certain lines or a special pattern on his harvested field. Like a painter with a brush, he designed his pictures with a tractor, so to speak, and then took them up. Every now and then he even got on the tractor himself.

The landscape pictures are very graphic throughout . He increased the contrast so much that the landscape often turned into an abstract image.

technology

His first camera was a Comet Bencini . It was loaded with roll film - presumably in the format 4 × 4 cm. Later he used a Kobell with the recording  format 6 × 9 cm, which was converted so that the recordings were finally 6 × 8.5 cm. In this way he was able to place one more recording on the normal roll film.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1963 Photokina Cologne
  • 1964 Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • 1968 The George Eastman House, Rochester
  • 1975 Victoria & Albert Museum, London
  • 1982 Photokina Cologne
  • 1987 Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
  • 1988 Center National de la Photographie, Paris; Museum of Fine Art, Houston; Museo Universitario ChPo, Mexico City
  • 1989 Metropolitan Museum, Tokyo
  • 1995 Museum Ludwig, Cologne
  • 1998 Musée du Louvre, Paris

Lexical entry

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d horvatland.com ( Memento of the original from October 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Frank Horvat ; Retrieved November 5, 2007. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.horvatland.com
  2. ^ Alistair Crawford: Mario Giacomelli . New York 2001, p. 284
  3. ^ Alistair Crawford: Mario Giacomelli . New York 2001, p. 222
personal data
SURNAME Giacomelli, Mario
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian photographer
DATE OF BIRTH August 1, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Senigallia , Italy
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 2000
Place of death Senigallia , Italy