Signed; Giovanni Chiaramonte - Senza foce - 2005

Exceptionally signed copy on the title page by Giovanni Chiaramonte (1948 - 2023), unique and unavailable on the internet in a signed edition. 160 pages and 64 color photographs in a two-page spread, photo captions with precise location at the end of the book with miniature reproductions. Very nice orange cloth binding with title stamped in relief in yellow on the cover and spine, color illustrated dust jacket and very beautiful orange cloth clamshell case. Excellent condition, like new.

Olona, the subject of this book, is a river in northern Italy that rises near Varese at 868 m altitude, and after a 131 km journey, approaching Milan, the river is canalized to disappear underground and continue its course, later splitting into several branches, one of which flows into an tributary of the Po in the province of Pavia. As Francesco Zanot writes in the introduction, "the photographs by Giovanni Choaramonte are dense with contradictions … man and nature, science and ecology, city and countryside, innovation and conservation … In these images the waters of the river that once nourished towns become black as tar [as in the cover photograph] when they reach Milan where they disappear underground." Olona has become one of Italy’s most polluted rivers. A nature park, Parc des Moulins (The Mills Park), named after the numerous watermills along the river, is being created in the middle valley of the river, aiming to safeguard the natural environment.

Giovanni Chiaramonte came to the depiction of landscapes and urban views after a long period of theoretical reflection that matured in the late 1970s. Marked by the beginning of a long season of Italian photography devoted to the theme of place, whose first collective exhibition organized by Luigi Ghirri took place in Italia in January 1984 with the famous “Viaggio in Italia,” in which Giovanni Chiaramonte participated with about ten other important Italian photographers, and two years later with the collective work “Esplorazioni sulla via Emilia.”

Giovanni Chiaramonte was born in 1943 in Varese, Northern Italy, near the crossing of the Olona river, and began photographing in the late 1960s. In 1978 he founded with Luigi Ghirri the editorial cooperative “Punto e Virgola” and later directed the Jaca Book collection from which it emerged. Chiaramonte published numerous books and many exhibitions of his work have been organized in various countries. After his death, a tribute meeting was held at MUFOCO, Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea (Museum of Contemporary Photography) in Cinisello Balsamo near Milan in December 2023. A Milan museum organized from November 16, 2024 to February 9, 2025, the exhibit Realismo Infinito, presenting 40 images on the different ways of perceiving the landscape that led to the edition of a book of the same title. Parallel, from November 10, 2024 to March 9, 2025, a large posthumous retrospective of Giovanni Chiaramonte’s photographic work bringing together 400 works was organized at the Parma city museum. It led to the publication of an important monograph, published by Electa and presented by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle.

Book from my personal collection kept with the utmost care, in excellent condition, practically like new. Secure shipping with reinforced packing and insured international tracking. In case of multiple purchases, possibility of grouped shipping with reimbursement of any excess postage paid via PayPal.

1.1 kg. excluding packaging