The twenty-seven highly dramatic photos, Venice and the Big Cruise ships by Gianni Berengo Gardin, represent an act of love to one of the most beautiful but also one of the most fragile cities in the world. The exhibition will take place until 6th January 2016 in the Olivetti Shop in Saint Mark’s Square.
An intense act of love from this famous photographer from Liguria, who has collaborated with the most important European magazines and newspapers and is member of the agency Contrasto. He has decided to dedicate his exhibition to the city where his father was born and where he has lived since he was a child. A homage, which shot after shot, becomes evidence and, at the same time condemnation of what his “own” Venice is suffering due to the big cruise ships passing through the canal of Giudecca and the Saint Mark canal: a wound, which is daily inflicted to its enchanting beauty, a constant danger for people, buildings, but above all for its very delicate environmental balance.
He felt it a duty to document all this as: “seeing my Venice, destroyed in its proportions and transformed into a toy, one of its paper maché clones you can see in Las Vegas, deeply upset me”, explained Berengo Gardin, who has always been interested in witnessing his time, a photo reporter more than an artist.
The twenty-seven black and white photographs, taken between 2013 and 2014, are exhibited in one of our most loved locations, the Olivetti Shop, designed by Carlo Scarpa in 1958, which, thanks to FAI (Italian National Trust) has gained a new life.
There is not a more significant, almost sentimental place where this exhibition could have been held: Gianno Berengo Gardin worked for Olivetti for a long time, he was a close friend and collaborator of Carlo Scarpa,whose work he witnessed; his grandparents’ house faced Piazzetta dei Leoncini, the little square next to the Saint Mark’s Basilica, which is not far from the shop.
His photos are like a punch in the stomach for the people who have never witnessed these floating skyscrapers loaded with tourists passing through the canal. Through his lens, his eye and heart tell the suffering the city has been experiencing for a long time because of unsustainable tourism. However, the photos allow the spectators to catch a glimpse of the defences that Venice continues to put up despite the time and the constant slashes it endures.
Gianni Berengo Gardin
Venice and the Big Cruise ships
Olivetti Shop, Piazza San Marco 101
Until 10th January 2016, from 10 to 18. Closed on Mondays, on December 25th and January 1st.
In case of high tide, 90 cm above sea level, opening times may change.
Entrance ticket: 5 euros
M.L.
