Once upon a time in Italy

The exhibition of 41 World Heritage sites in Italy as seen through the lens of 14 photographers throws up many striking visuals. Most of the 120 works can be classified, in the words of ‘Italy’s Cartier-Bresson’ Gianni Berengo Gardin, as “beautiful photography” and “good photography”.

The exhibition of 41 World Heritage sites in Italy as seen through the lens of 14 photographers throws up many striking visuals. Most of the 120 works can be classified, in the words of ‘Italy’s Cartier-Bresson’ Gianni Berengo Gardin, as “beautiful photography” and “good photography”.

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Sites from central and southern Italy such as Assisi, Urbino, Val d’Orcia, San Gimignano and Castel del Monte are represented by Gardin’s frames. Austere and elegant, his photographs preserve the lightness of eye that characterises the immediacy of a shoot. Other notables: the cultural landscape of Cinque Terre in black and white by Expressionist Ferdinando Scianna; Gabriele Basilico’s contemporary new-world image, evident in his Crespi d’Adda sequence; Dario Coletti’s tombs of Cerveteri and Tarquinia; Giuseppe Leone’s tribute to his native Sicily. Two women photographers, Giuseppina Caltagirone and Raffaela Mariniello, interpret the changes in the suburban landscape.

UNIT Unescoitalia, organised by the Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Centre is on at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Janpath till February 15.