Montclair State University

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Segal Gallery Exhibit: An Italian Sense of Place I

* Featuring works by Giuseppe Morandi and Micio, and Angelo Novi.
* January 8 - February 9, 2008

Giuseppe Morandi and Micio Biographies
Giuseppe Morandi was born in 1937 in Piadena from a family of laborers and farm workers, and was encouraged by radical educationalist Mario Lodi and leftist folk music revivalist Gianni Bosio to document the lives of the people and practices that surrounded him. Through an important relationship with the Azzali family and in particular with Gianfranco Azzali (known as Micio) he founded the Lega di Cultura di Piadena, (The Cultural league of Piadena) in the mid sixties as a center to preserve the local traditions. To further their efforts and extend their project to a larger public, they host an annual international festival which is attended by hundreds of musicologists, musicians and other interested parties. 

Their books of photography include I Paisan: Immagini Di Fotografia Contadina Della Bassa Padana, 1979 (Tenant Farmers: Photographic Images of the Peasants of the Po Lowland), Volti della Bassa Padana, 1984 (Faces of the Po Lowland), Quelli di Mantova, 1991 (Those of Mantua), which testify to the various people, professions and local rituals, La mia Africa, 2002 (My Africa) which highlights recent immigration into the rural region and Castelfranco d'Oglio: La processione di San Bortolo (Castelfranco d'Oglio: The procession of Saint Bortolo) a photographic series from 1966 documenting St. Bartholomew's feast that was published in 2006. Other works include their 1950s Neo-realist films documenting the lives of the paisan in northern Italy, footage from this was incorporated into Bertolucci's 1976 film Novecento, the CD of folk songs Quando Bandiera Rossa si Cantava, 2002 (When the Red Flag was Sung), and the recently completed film, I colori della Bassa, 2007 (The Colors of the Lowland).

The Work
In the mid sixties, Giuseppe Morandi together with his collaborator Micio founded and continues to manage the Lega di Cultura di Piadena (The Cultural League of Piadena), the small cultural institute in the village of Piadena near Parma, where, with a small group of colleagues, he has produced more than 50 collections of photographs, films, books, and CDs which document the very particular practices, daily routines and rituals of the region's people. In some ways a highly intimate anthropological and sociological case study lasting over half a century (his early Neo-Realist documentaries date from 1957) Morandi's photography ties him with exacting precision to the lives and land of the principally agricultural landscape that surrounds him.

For this exhibition the images are chosen from the monograph I Paisan, (The Tenant Farmer) and La mia Africa (My Africa). The images of I Paisan show a rural panorama of vocations and daily life distant from our urban lives, and the photographs My Africa stunningly reveal the unexpected diversity of immigrant communities in the Po region of northern Italy. 

In conjunction with the exhibition but separate from it, we will also be screening his Neo-Realist documentaries showing tenant farming practices from the 50s, the 90's, and a new film called I colori della Bassa, (The Colors of the Lowland).

[Image 1]
La familia Azzali: una familia di bergamini, 1979 (The Azzali Family: A family of Bergamini)

[Image 2]
Inceris li barbi, 1979 (They thin out the beetroot)

[Image 3]
Piero Azzali el fa li sgarneri, 1979 (Piero Azzali makes a broom)
From the collection /I Paisan,/
Credit: Lega di Cultura di Piadena / Giuseppe Morandi

Angelo Novi Biography
Angelo Novi was born in 1930, in Lanzo d'Intelvi, in the province of Como, Italy. He studied at l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (The Brera Fine Arts Academy) under the painter Domenico Cantatore, and then enrolled in the faculty of architecture for just one year, after which he dedicated himself to photography, firstly working as a photojournalist through the Publifoto agency (now Olimpia). He then moved to Rome and continued his work in reportage, and then in the 1960s began working for the Dufoto photographic agency where he began his career as a set photographer. He photographed for seminal Italian directors such as for Pier Paolo Pasolini on Mamma Roma, The Gospel According to St. Matthew and The Hawks and the Sparrows, Thereom, and for Sergio Leone on the locations of Once Upon a Time in the West, Once Upon a Time in America and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. For the latter he also stepped in front of the camera to play the role of Monk. However, he was known in particular for working on the sets of the films of Bernardo Bertolucci. He photographed for the master filmmaker's The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, The Last Emperor, Little Buddha, The Sheltering Sky and Stealing Beauty as well as the epic Novecento (1900) producing large bodies of black and white images. He died in his home town in 1997.

The Work
The images form a selection from a body of work created during the filming of Bertolucci's Novecento (1900). Novecento tells the story of two half-brothers, one a legitimate child born into the landed classes, the other illegitimate and born to a mother who works as a farm hand. 1900 follows the two children as they grow up in the first half of the 20th century and we watch the role that right and left wing political movements have in forming their interrelated lives and futures. The photographs show scenes from the film of the tenant farmers working the Po landscape outside of Bertolucci's birth place of Parma; photographs of the young protagonist's games; and include portraits of the later, now older protagonists played by Robert de Niro and Gerard Depardieu.
The images form an interesting staged counterpoint to the direct, honest portrayal of farming life by Morandi and Micio. 

[Image 1] - [Image 2]
Angelo Novi, Untitled, from /1900/, 1975.
All the photographs are enlargements from an album which Angelo Novi gave to Bertolucci from the shooting of /1900/. Credit: copyright Angelo Novi with the kind permission of Bernardo Bertolucci from the collection of the Cineteca Bologna

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