06.02.2023  •  Art NEWS

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GIAN PAOLO BARBIERI – UNCONVENTIONAL’ – still on display at 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS Gallery in Milan through 22 April, 2023

29 ARTS IN PROGRESS Gallery in Milan is delighted to announce that it has extended the duration of the ongoing exhibition GIAN PAOLO BARBIERI: UNCONVENTIONAL through 22 April, 2023. 

The artist experiments, invents and then deconstructs in order to then recompose to his liking that which surrounds him. The exhibition presents the public a highly innovative selection of images, both in terms of their setting and styling, the fruit of the unmistakable genius of the artist, who was the winner of the 2018 Lucie Award for Best International Photographer (Outstanding Achievement in Fashion). It is a style of photography that is at the same time ironic and sophisticated, both rare and provocative, rich with references to art history, marked by eclectic outdoor sets in exotic locations and allusions to cinema that echo Barbieri’s experiences as a young man studying at Cinecittà in Rome.

The exhibition presents intimate, spontaneous photographs of models and celebrities such as Eva Herzigova, Isa Stoppi and Donatella Versace juxtaposed with iconic photographs that Barbieri – one of the most brilliant interpreters of Made in Italy – created for some of the most famous ad campaigns for Italian and international fashion brands including Versace, Ferrè, Vivienne Westwood, Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino, and Armani.

Internationally recognized for his trademark black and white photographs, his subjects appear almost unapproachable in their sharp sophistication. Using color, Barbieri recounts his own personal and ironic interpretation of fashion and feminine beauty: The women in the photographs on display free themselves from the more canonical poses of fashion photography, instead becoming for the occasion spokeswomen of a new kind of unconventional elegance which reveals a more nonchalant, sensual perspective.

The works on display, a blend of unseen portraits and hand-painted photographs, tell the story of the artist’s irreverence and creativity, a photographer for whom the arts have always represented an inescapable means of validation and support to fashion, well beyond their utility. His studies and research have been so far-reaching that, in a career spanning over 60 years and comprising more than one million photographs, it would be difficult to find even a single example without allusions to points of reference or inspiration from the visual arts, cinema and the great masters of art and photography.

“I have always loved art, in all its incarnations. Since I was a child, the inspiration of theatre and cinema has played an important role. Reading widely, studying classical art, looking up to the great masters of the past, or simply by looking around me at what animates my surroundings, I have cultivated my artistic eye. I imagined or drew in my head that which I would have liked to be the result of this act, constructing my sets meticulously, always citing, more or less explicitly, art, cinema or architecture.” Gian Paolo Barbieri.

The works in the exhibition surprise a public who already know and love Barbieri, showing a lesser-known but irresistibly fascinating dimension of one of the greatest masters of photography, whose trademark style remains, even today, among the most copied and admired in the world.

The exhibition opened just a few days following the cinema release of the first film documentary made about the life and work of Gian Paolo Barbieri, ‘The Man and The Beauty’, which won the Audience Award at the Biografilm Festival 2022 in Bologna. The film premiered in Italian movie theaters at the end of the year.

Cited as one of the fourteen best fashion photographers by Stern magazine, Barbieri is an artist who is continuously becoming more present in prestigious museum collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in London, Palazzo Reale in Milan, the Kunstforum in Vienna, the MAMM in Moscow and the Erarta Contemporary Art Museum in St. Petersburg, the Musée du quai Branly in Paris and the Nicola Erni Collection, Switzerland.

 
Featuring: Beverley Luckings
Gian Paolo Barbieri - Unconventional

Gian Paolo Barbieri - Unconventional

 
Gian Paolo Barbieri - Unconventional at 29 Arts in Progress Gallery

Gian Paolo Barbieri - Unconventional at 29 Arts in Progress Gallery

 
Gian Paolo Barbieri - Unconventional

Gian Paolo Barbieri - Unconventional

 
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