2020 marks the 25th year anniversary of the beginning of the Spiagge (beaches) series, a long photographic narrative through which Massimo Vitali studies contemporary society and our way of connecting. On this occasion the Museo Ettore Fico in Turin, in collaboration with Mazzoleni, dedicates to the artist the retrospective Massimo Vitali. Human Constellations. The exhibition consists of 30 large-scale works that record with incredible sharpness, people gatherings on beaches, clubs, mountains and sand dunes.
The exhibition, which should have opened just before the spring lockdown, remained closed to the public for 7 months. Paradoxically, upon the reopening in September, the viewer came face to face with a series of works depicting the world of yesterday, in which crowds anachronistically gather, dance or enjoy moments of leisure. Considered entirely normal until recently, it now seems unfathomable and a far distant memory to see masses of non-distanced people enjoying a carefree moment.
At the end of May 2020, after three months of strict lockdown, Vitali has gone back to the Italian shores to discover how the long period of suffering, uncertainty and the new social distance measures would affect the Italian habits on vacation. Just as in 1994 the desire to conduct a sociological survey had given rise to the beaches series, a quarter of a century later the photographer returned to his privileged observation spot to discover how the vacation lifestyle of Italians has changed in such an atypical summer.
The first photographs taken at the beginning of the so called “Second Phase”, like Foce del Serchio Couples and Marina di Massa Capannina Bianca – Vogue Hope are very far from the abundant vitality that enlivened Vitali’s well-known images of people milling about like miniature dots along the shoreline. The few people on the beach in the very first days of the newfound freedom are portrayed in Tuscan spots very close to the artist’s city of Lucca. Due to the initial restrictions to travel to other regions people are moving timidly or laying under the sun in small and distant groups.
In these overexposed photos, the geometry of the bodies are in perfect harmony with the openness of the natural landscape. Like in Renaissance painting, an equilibrium dominates the composition, a balance between sky, sea and earth, between landscape and people, between the colours of nature and those of towels and umbrellas.Travelling limitations and a widespread caution led most of the Italian population to avoid holidays abroad and brought to a re-discovery of their own country, less crowded with tourists this year. Vitali went back to the origins, shooting again in Rosignano – after his first beach photographs in the Nineties and later in the Twenties. With the passing of years, the issues of environmental pollution that had marked the previous photographs of Rosignano, make way for a closer attention to the changes in our society. Rosignano Solvay Muti-ethnic showing kids and adults of different ethnicities and religions recounts the beach as a free place where social inclusion is fully achieved.
With time, Vitali’s photographs testify of the tension in people’s behavior. A more carefree, relaxed attitude emerges from the shot of the Apulian site of the Chidro River (Chidro Esse), and the glorious fullness of Italianness explodes in the turquoise waters of Marina di Massa (Marina di Massa Pontile dell’Amore Italy) as well as in the rocky Manarola (Manarola Paranco). The artist’s watchful eye keeps the usual distance and view point from above creating images, that are very detailed and portraying a deeply empathetic humanity.
Every image has different layers, in terms of composition -a geometry scattered with elements, “human constellations” –in a social and anthropological way. It is a succession of microcosms, small stories that are all different and unique.
Massimo Vitali, ODDA issue 19 "You, Me, And Everyone We Know", 2020Now, of course, the main interest lies in the fact that we just came out of the lockdown and so it’s strange to see how people interact. This is something that only happens once every century so it’s a fantastic possibility for shooting things that are different from what you’d shoot normally.
Massimo Vitali interviewed by Present magazine, 2020If you have an interest in it then you can start studying it and it is in a way a collaboration between me and the people looking at the picture. You have to be engaged. The viewer has to work a bit!
Cover image: Back to work!, photo by Nicola Gnesi
