Portugal – Photos and videos, on show Paola Di Bello’s art

A new Italian contemporary art event will be launched in Lisbon on 10 November, as part of the cycle of exhibitions organised by the Italian Cultural Institute. “Paola Di Bello. Photos and videos” is a personal exhibition of the Italian photographer and videomaker, curated by Raffaella Perna. Her exhibition features twenty photographs which are part of the “Le lucciole e Fuoricampo” (“Fireflies” and “Off-field”) series, taken between the end of the 80s and the mid 90s. The surface of the photo is impressed by the light emitted by 25 fireflies, caught by the artist in the countryside and taken to the darkroom and allowed to walk on black-and-white photographic film. The series is based on the off-camera experiments common in Italian research in photography in the 70s, where the image – as in the photo frames of the 1910-1920s – takes shape through the direct contact between reality and the light-sensitive surface. The artist’s interest in socio-political aspects may be better seen in the “Fuoricampo” series performed in 1997 in Di Bello’s native city, Naples, following a contract with the municipality. In this series she focused on the city’s suburban areas, a popular subject in Italian photography in the 80s and 90s. Although different from a formal standpoint, both series contain elements that are core to the photographer’s work: her interest in the European vanguard and neo-vanguard, the introduction of chance in the photographic process, the choice of limiting the author’s intervention to the minimum, in order to prioritise the enigmatic aspects of reality. The artist will attend the ribbon-cutting of the exhibition, which will remain open until 16 December