IS nice to write by Gian Paolo Barbieri. He forces her to review photographs of him, scrutinizing the details.
They tell a time that is our story. Let’s talk about it Unconventional, the exhibition that opens its doors in Milan today, November 29, to stay until March 25, 2023 in the spaces of 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery.
Actor, operator, costume designer, he frequented the theater and cinema and loved them, we know it, as he transmitted the power of representation in all his photography. Unconventional is the title of the exhibition. He, the most elegant of all, the artist of fashion photography, is a little unconventional despite the fact that his images are formal and rigorous. It is because he has been able to go through the seasons without adapting but reinventing his unmistakable style and it is because he has donated sensitivity and emotion to fashion photography.
A red rose for his models
“Gian Paolo Barbieri’s images are – in order – eye, heart and mind”. This was said by someone who knew him well. It was Gianfranco Ferré.
His elegance was unconventional, as well as his images in perfect balance of shapes and colors, lights and shadows. Legend has it that she gave every model who went to pose in her studio a red rose. And unfortunately elegance is absolutely unconventional, today more than yesterday.
Barbers the genius, it makes us reflect in the wonderful models, protagonists of that Italy that was booming, that of Made in Italy that dominated the world. Barbers the ironictransforms fashion into a staging of the absurd, exotic or domestic, it doesn’t matter. Barbieri the provocateur, plays with the camera, a sophisticated director of memorable images. There is certainly Italian fashion: Versace, Ferrè, Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino and Armani; there is the international one of Vivienne Westwood and Saint Laurent. There are the newspapers, also beautiful thanks to Barbieri the esthete: Vogue, Vanity Fair and the others by Condé Nast. In her long and prolific professional life, there is also a precious collaboration with iO Donna from 1997 to 1999. Who knows why the new century separated us.
Barbieri’s photography is sharp, perfect, spotless. He doesn’t like smudging, he doesn’t accept imperfection, he disdains randomness. It’s cinema, it’s fashion, it’s photography. It’s culture.
Gian Paolo Barbieri “Laura Alvarez”, Venezuela – 1976
His images have arrived in the new millennium as a splendid legacy, a heritage filled with his knowledge, passion for representation and the courage of his vision.
The Gian Paolo Barbieri Foundation
Aware of the value of his work, a career spanning sixty years and a million frames, he has created in his image and likeness a foundation in his name because he knows that success is not enough: the work exists to be eternal and therefore must be preserved and transmitted.
There is all Barbieri in the epigraph that opens his site: there is the generosity of a man who dedicated his life to photography “ It is our duty to leave to future generations something that can be useful for them in undertaking this increasingly difficult and complex profession.”
Unconventional is the exhibition at the 29 Arts In Progress in Milan that anticipates by a few days the release of the first docufilm made on the life and work of Gian Paolo Barbieri, “Man and beauty”, winner of the award at the Biografilm Festival 2022 in Bologna of the public.
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