Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy website LETIZIA BATTAGLIA. Just for passion - MAXXI is dedicating an anthological exhibition to the great Sicilian artist with over 250 photographs
november 25, 2016 - Maxxi

LETIZIA BATTAGLIA. Just for passion - MAXXI is dedicating an anthological exhibition to the great Sicilian artist with over 250 photographs

MAXXI is dedicating an anthological exhibition to the great Sicilian artist
with over 250 photographs testifying to 40 years of Italian life and society. Born in Palermo in 1935 and known throughout the world for her photos of the mafia, #letiziabattaglia has provided and continues to provide one of the most extraordinary and acute visual testimonies to Italian life and society, in particular that of Sicily.Recognised as one of the most important figures in contemporary photography for the civic and ethical value of her work, #letiziabattaglia is not only the “photographer of the mafia” but also, through her artistic work and as a photo reporter for the daily newspaper L’Ora, the first woman and in 1985 in New York she became the first European photographer to receive the prestigious internationalW. Eugene Smith Award, the international prize commemorating the Lifephotographer.
Shortly after the celebrations for her 80th birthday, #maxxi is organizing #letiziabattaglia.Just for passion, a major exhibition curated by Paolo Falcone, Margherita Guccione and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, that from 24 November 2016 through to 17 April 2017 brings to #maxxi over 250 photographs, contact sheets and previously unseen vintage prints from the archive of this great artist, along with magazines, publications, films and interviews.
Visual testimony to the bloodiest mafia atrocities and and social and political reality of Italy, a number of her shots are firmly embedded in the collective consiousness: Giovanni Falcone at the funeral of the General Dalla Chiesa; Piersanti Mattarella asassinated in the arms of his brother Sergio; the widow of Vito Schifano; the boss Leoluca Bagarella following his arrest; Giulio Andreotti with Nino Salvo.
“I am particularly happy with this exhibition”, says Giovanna Melandri, president of Fondazione #maxxi, “with which we celebrate not only the extraordinary work of the photographer #letiziabattaglia, but also her social commitment, her militant passion that has seen her incessantly on the front line for diverse causes: legality, women’s issues, enviornmental problems, prisoners’ rights. A commitment that has brought her numerous prizes and awards around the world.”
THE EXHIBITION
Organized in two macro areas, the exhibitions intends to provide a 360°overview of multi-faceted, courageous and indefatigable personalità of Letizia Battglia and represent the complexity of her interests in photography, publishing. experimental theatre and politics.
These aspects are explored in the documentary section that opens the exhibition and recounts her intensive and varied work of a social nature. There are examples of her work as a photo-reporter in Palermo and Milan,such as her first photo spread depicting the prostitute Enza Montoro, dated 1969 and published in the daily newspaper L’Ora, for which she worked for over twenty years, photographs of occupations, of protests in the piazzas, of political rallies in the Seventies in Milan, those of the new creative scene in Milan that led her to meet and portray Pier Paolo Pasolini and Franca Rame and which are leaving her archives for the first time for this occasion.
Another previously unseen series exhibited at #maxxi for the first time is the one created in 1983 in the psychiatric hospital in Via Pindemonte in Palermo: Battaglia collaborated extensively with the “Real Casa dei Matti”, organizing theatre workshops and activities that would converge into the films Festa d’agosto and Vatinni, presented here for the first time after thirty years.This nucleus of works will be acquired by #maxxi for its permanent collection.
Then there is the story of the photographer’s extensive publishing career with magazines such asGRANDEVU’, Edizioni della battaglia,Mezzocielo and her work as a director.


LETIZIA BATTAGLIA. Just for passion
24 November 2016 – 17 April 2017
LetiziaBattaglia | PerPuraPassione 
MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Arts
www.fondazionemaxxi.it - info:06.320.19.54; info@fondazionemaxxi.it
opening hours:11:00 AM – 7:00 PM (Tues, Weds, Thurs, Fri, Sun) | 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM (Sat) | closed Mondays
Admittance free for students of art architecture from Tuesday to Friday