Nuova Generazione. Sguardi Contemporanei Sugli Archivi Alinari at MAD

Curated by Giangavino Pazzola and Monica Poggi, the exhibition presents works of Matteo De Mayda, Leonardo Magrelli, Giovanna Petrocchi and Silvia Rosi, the outcome of a research project on the role of the photographic archive in the contemporary world.

Overview

Starting from the study of Alinari's extraordinary photographic heritage, each author has developed a new project that creates a dialogue between past and present, employing a multidisciplinary approach that bears witness to the richness of historical collections and the ways in which contemporary practices reflect on photography as a document. The four projects in the exhibition explore a broad spectrum of reflections on the archive: the relationship between truth and fiction, the nature of the document, the decolonisation and deconstruction of imaginaries and knowledge.

The exhibition is the result of a commissioning and production project promoted by CAMERA - Centro Italiano per la Fotografia (Italian Centre for Photography) and Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia (Alinari Foundation for Photography), to enrich the Alinari Archives - an immense photographic heritage that has become public thanks to the acquisition by the Region of Tuscany - with unpublished works by young artists. The initiative, which won the Photography Strategy 2022 call for proposals to support research on contemporary languages, artistic production and Italian photographic excellence, is promoted by the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture and the Municipality of Florence.

After an initial presentation at CAMERA last autumn, MAD Murate Art District proposes an articulated exhibition analysing the processuality of photographers' work. Nuova Generazione marks an important moment in the history of the Fondazione Alinari, which for the first time participates in a commissioning project, underlining the vitality of an archive born in Florence in the 19th century, but still capable of generating meaning through dialogue with the contemporary world and collaboration with realities such as CAMERA and MAD, points of reference for photographic research and artistic production.