29 April 2014
Franco Fontana (1933) received his training in Modena, in the same milieu as Luigi Ghirri, Claudio Parmeggiani and Franco Guerzoni. He shared their urge to overturn the codes of neorealist photography, and to do so chose to stake everything on the use of color. In fact color has been the absolute protagonist of his compositions since the time when, in 1978, at Baia delle Zagare in Puglia, he took a picture that was to become the symbol of his repertoire: soft light, essentiality, large expanses of just a few shades of color (cobalt blue, powder blue, sandy yellow). Since then his gaze has ranged across seas, fields, horizons and cities, rendering them absolute in pure forms in order to capture their deepest essence. The rhythm of his vision is slow, the silence almost total. Full Color illustrates the course of his creative development from the sixties to the present day: an invitation to lose ourselves in a topography of iconic places and a eulogy of suspended time.
Franco Fontana, Full Color
Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti
A cura di Denis Curti
Venezia
15 febbraio – 18 maggio 2014
Franco Fontana, New York, 1986.
Franco Fontana, Texas, 1979.
Franco Fontana, Phoenix, 1979.
Franco Fontana, Zurigo, 1981.
Franco Fontana, Modena, 2005.
Franco Fontana, Mediterraneo, 1988.
Franco Fontana, Los Angeles, 1991.
Franco Fontana, Los Angeles, 2001.
Franco Fontana, Londra, 1998.
Franco Fontana, Basilicata, 1978.
Franco Fontana, Baia delle Zagare, 1970.
Franco Fontana, Praga, 1967.