Patrizia Genovesi

Patrizia Genovesi is an Italian photographer and video artist. She was born in 1962 in Milano.

Genovesi had Leonard Freed, Richard Kalvar, Moises Saman and Abbas of the Magnum Photos agency among her photography teachers. She leverages suggestions from other arts as well as from technology, thanks to a scientific education coupled with studies of drawing and painting from the Italian tradition, music execution and composition, and other abilities like screenwriting with cinema director Mario Monicelli, writing with Domenico Starnone, and theater direction with Argentinian Renzo Casali.

Genovesi teaches Photography at the Free University of Cinema in Roma.

Genovesi’s photographs of Nobel Prize laureates, including Rita Levi-Montalcini, John Nash, Richard Ernst, Robert Mundell, and Frank Wilczeck have been published by the Nobel Prize Organization.^[1] Her portrait of Mrs. Levi-Montalcini was exhibited in Kamienna Gora, Poland, during the celebrations for the embryologist Viktor Hamburger, a primary collaborator of the Italian Nobel Prize laureate. Her portraits of photographer Leonard Freed are part of the permanent collection of the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi, Belgium.^[2]

Personal exhibitions

• "Sculpting With Light", Mondadori – Roma (2003)
• "Sculpting With Light", Mondadori – Milano (2004)
• "Sculpting With Light", Tempio di Dioniso al Quirinale – Roma (2005)
• "Sculpting With Light", Torretta Valadier – Roma (2006)
• "Cinema's People", Auditorium Parco della Musica di Roma, Notebook – Roma (2007)
• "Miscellaneous", Balletti Palace Hotel for Mensa IBD – San Martino al Cimino, Viterbo (2008)
• "Coriolan by Ludwig van Beethoven", International Malpensa Airport – Milano (2008-2009)^[3]
• "Coriolan by Ludwig van Beethoven", Biblioteca Vallicelliana – Roma (2009)^[4]
• "Art and Science", Club of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs – Roma (2010)^[5]
• "Art and Science", Club of the Ministry for Military Marine – Roma (2011)^[6]
• "Art and Science" and "Retrospective", Italian Institute of Culture – Budapest (2011)^[7]
• "Image - Historic Garbatella", 3f Gallery, Roma (2012)^[8]
• "Giuseppe Verdi's Women", Club of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs – Roma (2013)^[9]
• "Donne di Giuseppe Verdi", Centro Leica - Firenze (2015)

Collective exhibitions

• "Mirame", Palazzo Bastogi – Firenze (2012)^[10]
• "Retrospective", Festa della Cultura – Roma (2012)
• "Painters", Grenning Gallery – New York (2012)^[11]

Selected projects

• Giuseppe Verdi’s Women was exhibited in 2013 at the Club of Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Rome, Italy. Focusing on the Italian composer’s feminine characters, the project is composed of large-size, mostly black and white pictures and a set of videos realized as long-shot sequences of models interpreting La Traviata’s Violetta, Macbeth’s wife, Attila’s Odabella, Aida, Jeanne D’Arc, Il Trovatore’s Azucena, and others.^[12]
• Art and Science was first exhibited in 2010 at the Club of Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Rome, Italy, and subsequently at the Club of Italian Ministry for Military Marine, Rome, Italy and at the Institute of Italian Culture in Budapest, Hungary, both in 2011. It is a gallery of black and white portraits of world-renowned scientists, including Nobel Prize, Fields Medal or other prize winners Rita Levi Montalcini, Andrew Wiles, John Nash Richard Ernst, Edward Witten, Benoît Mandelbrot, and Douglas Hofstadter. With the collaboration of technology expert Corrado Giustozzi, excerpts from the portrayed scientist’s works were hidden among the pictures’ pixels to artistically emphasize the link between the thinker and the thought.^[13]
• Painters was exhibited in 2012 at the Grenning Gallery, Sag Harbour, New York, USA. It consists of color portraits of a group of painters of the Florence Academy (Ben Fenske, Nelson H. White, Hege Elizabeth Haugen, Ramiro and Melissa Franklin Sanchez) individually shot in their working studios.^[14]
• Coriolan by Ludwig van Beethoven was first exhibited at the International Malpensa Airport, Milano, Italy between 2008 and 2009 and subsequently at the Vallicelliana Library in Rome, Italy, in 2009. It is composed of a gallery of frames from Genovesi’s black and white video shooting of orchestra conductor Giorgio Proietti executing Beethoven's famous overture recalling Shakespeare’s tale of Coriolan, a Roman leader exiled from his home city, a commander driving his soldiers to the combat, and a man lacerated by contrasting feelings that will finally lead him to death.^[15]
• Cinema’s People was exhibited at the Auditorium Della Musica Notebook, Rome, in 2007. It is composed of a gallery of black and white portraits of cinema directors, actors and art directors, including Vincenzo Cerami, David Lynch, Wim Wenders, Stefania Sandrelli, and others.

Genovesi’s concepts about photography

• The following statements have been published on Genovesi's website.^[16]

"I imagined a life in color, but I was living in black and white, as a long sequence of gray more or less intense, modulated by different amounts of light. That was the perception of the reason that discerns, which brings together concepts and experiences in each category, the leads back to what the reality is in its nature an eternal contrast between death and life. The black and white recall the essence: one is the absorption of each coloring, the other synthesis. Thus contain every color, every vital presence and every fault".

"Black and white photography is light, contrast and rhythm. When I shoot in black and white I try to identify the tonal passages, the amount of light contained in the individual colors. I often observe how the light reflects on the different materials and compose the shot emphasize the lines of force of the shot. I love the narrative ability of black and white which is a stylistic choice that I make when I want to tell only the fact.When the color is stripped away, only the skeleton of the story remains".

"The graphics and prospective create the rhythm of the image, that is evidenced by the alternation of full and empty spaces, from serialism, by geometric shapes. The rhythm is in the brain of man, not in his eyes. It is not mere exposure of seriality. This I think. It is not very different from the sound rhythm. The concept is similar.The rhythm goes first sensed and then seen. I often observe structures, that I rationalize at the time of picture composition.The directionality of the look is a fundamental element that gives meaning to photography, and is the element around which I create my compositional rhythm".

"Photography documents the reality and announces the possibility, reveals stories of life and visually describes virtual worlds. It proposes itself as a powerful means for investigating the amazing discovery that unites time and space in a unique, real perspective".

References

External links

• Patriziagenovesi.com