GENOVA.- For the occasion of START – the White Night of Contemporry Art in Genoa, on Thursday, the 6th of October, 2022
VisionQuesT 4rosso Contemporary Photography started the new season with the exhibition by Francesca Galliani INCROLLABILE (UNWEVAERING) that will continue through December 23rd, 2022.
After more than twenty years, unique photographs emerge from Francesca Galliani's archives (photographs that Galliani printed in analogue and selenium and sepia toned herself) where the unchanged tension given by the combination of faces and bodies, - of only an apparent unambiguous genre – is expressed by the intertwining of seduction, tenderness, introspection, discouragement, defiance, and triumph.
In the depiction of people, as in all her work, Galliani's portraits “exude a longing for emotions and an attempt to capture what is most fleeting: the process of becoming. In this perspective, the artist and her subjects evolve together." *
Able to pass from analogue photography processed with manual interventions, to painting and collage, as a desire to add more, to intensify the emotion captured by the photo, she often brings the attention back to female issues not only of a social nature such as violence against women or the rights of transgenders, but to a vision of dense and powerful women, courageous and unconventional, strong in a delicious inner chaos and free from any compromise or social subordination.
Giuliana Scimé writes in the volume Francesca Galliani Real:
"An homage to beauty, to the ambiguity of a female being's impenetrable contradictions?
No, her inquiry about the body is through “knowledge”: the willingness to discover, through the surface's forms, an intangible and ignored universe.
Beautiful, extremely beautiful, provocative, and transgressive, rebellious and fragile, her women are symbolic affirmations of “being oneself” with all the truthfulness that life grants us.
And only a woman could have succeeded in breaking through this subtle and even impenetrable veil that shields the indiscreet glance.
Tired and nauseated by idiotic, useless, pseudo-erotic celebrations of silicone-enhanced and irrepressible fantasies, this is the female universe, demure in revealing itself through its own image, yet also so intensely authentic as to provide a tremor of incredulity.
Francesca Galliani's work is a grimace towards stereotypes and a sublime gift, finally, to the female truth that hides beneath iridescent shades of sensuality: androgynous bodies with exhaustive drives, soft shapes of irresistible desire, alluring uncertainties of sexuality, bodies abandoned in dreams, violence an hypocritical certainties.
Real Women, not dolls that pose in front of the lens, docile slaves of a mistaken duty."
*Peggy Fogelman - Norma Jean Calderwood Director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.
Biography
Italian artist and photographer Francesca Galliani received her BFA at Washington DC’s Corcoran School of Art. After receiving her BFA she started a thriving career from her newly adopted home, New York City. Her distinctive photographic art set her apart immediately and won her the Kodak European Panorama Award in Arles, 1995.
Her creative edge never ceasing to evolve, Galliani soon distinguished herself as an internationally respected artist ranging from photographic analogue media with manual intervention of toners to mixed media with her signature use of painting and collage used on her own photographs.
The international fine art world has embraced the unique emotion of Galliani’s work and she has been exhibited extensively across the globe. Artists she has been featured alongside include Helmut Newton, Robert Mapplerthorpe, Pierre et Gilles, Joel-Peter Witkin and Marina Abramovic.
Some of the highlights of her career have been exhibitions at “Bias” (Biennale Internazionale Arte Contemporanea Sacra delle religioni dell’Umanità a Palermo 2018), the “M.A.C.” in Milan-Italy (solo Exhibition 2018), “Palazzo Isolani” in Bologna-Italy (Solo Exhibition 2015), The Museum Ciurlonis” in Kaunas-Lithuania (Solo Exhibition 2013), The Museum “Manege” in Saint Petersburg-Russia (Solo Exhibition 2011), “The Venice Biennale” in Italy (2011), “The Alessandria Biennale” in Italy (2008), “Palazzo della Ragione” in Milan-Italy and “Palazzina Reale di Santa Maria Novella” in Florence-Italy (“Arte e Omosessualita’ from Von Goeden to Pierre et Gilles” 2007), The Museum “La Triennale” Milan- Italy (Solo Exhibition 2007), “The Photography’s International Biennal” Brescia-Italy (2006), The Museum “Mambo” in Bologna-Italy (il nudo tra ideale e realta’ 2004).
Galliani’s work has been published in books like: “Portrait of the New Angola” (Skira/Rizzoli 2012), “Lo stato dell’Arte Regioni d’Italia (Skira 2011), “Arte e Omosessualita’. Da Von Gloeden a Pierre et Gilles” (Electa 2007), “Curve Pericolose” (Maretti 2007), “Linee all’Orizzonte” (Maretti 2007), “Biennale Internazionale della Fotografia” (Museum ed. 2006), “Real” (Charta-2004), “The Nude Ideal and Reality” (Skira 2004), “Women by Women” (Prestel-2003).
She had reviews in magazines and newspapers such as: “Manintown” (2018), “Art Tribune” (2018), “Twelv” (2017), Style Magazine/Corriere della Sera (2016), “D” of La Repubblica ( 2015, 2011,2008), “AD today Conde’ Nast” (2015), “Il Corriere della Sera” (Italy 2015, 2007), “Foto & Video” (Russia 2013), “Time Out” (Dubai 2012), “The National” (Dubai 2012), “Penthouse” (Holland 2012), “La Repubblica” (Italy 2011 and 2007), “Il Sole 24 Ore” (Italy 2011), “A Rush of Culture” (Italy 2011), “Max” (Italy 2010), “Panorama” (Italy 2010), “Inspire” (Slovakia 2009), “Arte Cineteca” (Italy 2009), “Velvet” (Italy 2008 and 2009), “Il Domani” (Italy 2008), “L’Espresso” (Italy 2007), XL (Italy 2007), Il Resto del Carlino” (Italy 2006), “Overview” (Italy 2006), “La Stampa” (Italy 2006).
She did editorials for fashion Magazines such as “Velvet” (Italy 2008/2009), “Vogue Gioielli” (Italy 2006 to 2009) and artistic interpretations for campaigns such as “Levi’s” (2007 and 2011), “John Richmond” (2010 and 2011), “Stefanel” (2010) and “Duvetica” (2010).
