Barcelona Symposium: Talking Galleries’ flagship meeting
The Barcelona Symposium, at the heart of Talking Galleries’ work, is a two-day conference of debates, cogent conversations, and fruitful networking all around art galleries.
It is a unique opportunity for prominent art world figures to discuss and reflect on various aspects of art gallery management. It attracts a diverse audience, made up of gallerists, collectors, art journalists, curators, artists, and fair directors, who are engaged in the discussion and contribute to the exchange of expertise and relevant knowledge across all sectors of the art business.
Held annually in the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA), each edition of the event has brought together over 200 professionals from about 25 countries all around the world.
Since 1993, the Italian Massimo Vitali stands on a platform several meters high, and with a large camera he photographs beaches, nightclubs, ski resorts, supermarkets, swimming pools and other busy leisure areas.
The work of this contemporary photographer embodies the essence of leisure activity in the summer season.
But there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to this author’s idyllic seascapes. Vitali responded to the political turmoil in Italy in the 1940s, launching his beach series in the mid-1990s as a political commentary on mass tourism and social complacency. While Vitali’s photographs seem to depict the paradisiacal appearance from each place he captures, his work actually focuses on the individuals who appear in the composition and their collective response to society.
Using the beach as a platform for social research, Vitali sought to photograph bathers in their most vulnerable state in order to document society in its most authentic state Most of the artist’s work captures tourist destinations in Italy as it retains the idea that taking quality photos does not necessarily require traveling outside of your local community. Some of the famous places immortalized in Vitali’s work include Spargi Cala Corsara Cala Mariolu Porto Miggiano and Cefalù Viareggio however Vitali has since it has expanded beyond the borders of Italy to vacation spots in Brazil, Greece, Turkey and Spain.
Massimo Vitali, by Wallpaper*
Since the start of his iconic beach series, Vitali has continued to explore the natural environment, but instead focused on the impact of human disturbance on nature In contrast to his coastal scenes, Vitali focuses less on the pleasure and leisure of people and, instead, in the complex relationship between humans and their impact on the environment his most recent series entitled Disturbed Coastal Systems (April 2017) reveals an implicit message of the tension built between the man and nature.
Dates
08.09.2022- 02.10.2022
Organizer Government of Cantabria. General Directorate of Culture and PHotoESPAÑA
Headquarters
Central Library of CantabriaC/ Ruiz de Alda, 19, 39009 Santander
