SIGNED Giovanni Chiaramonte - Nascosto in prospettiva, - 2007

Exceptionally signed edition on the half-title page by Giovanni Chiaramonte (1948 - 2023), absolutely unavailable on the internet whether signed or unsigned as it is completely out of print. 160 pages and 72 color photographs taken between 1980 and 1999 across the Italian peninsula, text in Italian by Enrico Gusella. Sturdy hardcover with title debossed on the back and illustrated dust jacket. In excellent condition, like new.

To view the photographic series in full screen, double-click on a photograph with the ability to return to the standard display at any time.

Giovanni Chiaramonte arrived at representing landscapes and city views after a long period of theoretical reflection that matured at the end of the 1970s. He was 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 with Viaggio in Italia in January 1984, in which Giovanni Chiaramonte participated along with about a dozen other Italian photographers, and two years later with the collective work “Esplorazioni sulla via Emilia.”

A privileged terrain of millennia of human history, Italy has been shaped by various Western civilizations and thus constitutes the only truly contemporary space, where different eras and cultures are present in the same place.

In Chiaramonte’s photography, each concrete form, each visible figure, each architectural fragment that stands out along the profile of the peninsula is part of a labyrinth, a mirror of an enigma, an image of a perspective that the gaze must contemplate intensely to discover, after slow observation, the trace of a meaning, the sign of a hidden but always active and present love.

Giovanni Chiaramonte was born in Varese, Northern Italy, to Sicilian parents and began photographing in the late 1960s. His childhood was marked by long train journeys to Sicily, and he has always carried the nostalgia for that Mediterranean light by the sea’s edge. Indeed, there is a light of wonder that radiates in Giovanni Chiaramonte’s photographs. “A light that comes from afar and goes far. The light of the infinite that permeates the meaning of our entire existence. Photography is an image of light generated in darkness, a finished image in which the infinite is reflected, an image of the visible in which the invisible is revealed,” explains Chiaramonte, who was seeking the divine by photographing in a approach that is both theological and theoretical.

Defined as “a kind of enigma” by Ferdinando Scianna, who is an atheist, Giovanni Chiaramonte built a rich narrative of places and landscapes, designing measured and rigorous spaces, yet deeply humane, and his photography constitutes a collection of symbols.

Deeply influenced by the theological and aesthetic tradition of the Church of the East, he shares with Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky the theme of the relationship between place and destiny in Western civilization. Numerous exhibitions of his works have been organized in various countries, and he published many photography books. In December 2023, a tribute gathering was organized at MUFOCO, Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea (Museum of Contemporary Photography) in Cinisello Balsamo near Milan. A museum in Milan organized from November 16, 2024, to February 9, 2025, the exhibition Realismo Infinito, presenting 40 images on the different ways of perceiving the landscape, which led to the edition of a book under the same title. Parallel, from November 10, 2024, to February 9, 2025 (extended to March 9), a large posthumous retrospective of Giovanni Chiaramonte’s photographic work bringing together 400 works was organized at the Parma city museum, extended to March 9. It resulted in the publication of an important monograph, published by Electa and presented by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle.

Excellent condition copy, almost like new. A personal collection item stored with great care. Shipped protected with reinforced packaging and insured international tracking. For multiple purchases, group shipping with refund of any excess postage paid via PayPal.

1.1 kg without packaging