Mimmo Jodice. Transiti
27 May - 03 Sep 2011
Mimmo Jodice: TRANSITI OPERA 3, 2008, Kohleabzug auf Baumwollpapier, Ed. 2/5, Diptychon, 70 x 72,5 cm und 70 x 68 cm.
Galerie Karsten Greve in Cologne devotes a solo show to the renowned Neapolitan photographer Mimmo Jodice, continuing the successful cooperation with the artist in recent years. The works in this show were recently exhibited at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples and are closely related to the museum’s collection of paintings. Mimmo Jodice studied the wonderful old master paintings, especially the vivid portrayals of people, and photographed selected sections and portraits in black and white. He brought these studies into a fascinating dialogue with his portrait photographs taken on the streets of Naples over many years. By matching the photographs from the museum and those from “real” life in pairs, he displays a moving, almost incredible intensity of human emotions. The faces’ expressivity conflates epochs, human ages, and visual techniques. Quite independently from the various scenic contexts, unexpected similarities and equivalences emerge which become visible only through the highly sensitive eye of the photographer.
Mimmo Jodice is interested in gestures, looks, speaking eyes, and the traces of inner emotion on the face, all of which remain similar over the centuries. His models are the people of Naples, and in the historic paintings, he also tends to focus on minor figures, where the artists were not so bound to traditional typologies as with the main figures of history. Especially in the marginal figures, the painters’ related interest in expressivity, the representation of emotions, tension, scepticism, eager anticipation, horror, and exuberance is reflected – quite across the historical distance. In his large photographic portrait cycle, Mimmo Jodice is not interested in creating a portrait gallery, but rather in making visible and capturing “expressive moments”. He sees the same vocabulary of expression across the centuries, so that in his diptychs and group portraits, Neapolitan conversations are conducted across the times.
From May, 18th until August, 15th, 2011 the Museum Louvre, Paris, devotes Mimmo Jodice the solo show “Mimmo Jodice – The Louvre’s Eyes”.
Mimmo Jodice was born in Naples in 1934. An active photographer since the 1970’s, he has also taught photography at the Naples Academy. His work having become a beacon for contemporary Italian photography, it has been widely exposed through countless exhibitions and international publications.
Mimmo Jodice is interested in gestures, looks, speaking eyes, and the traces of inner emotion on the face, all of which remain similar over the centuries. His models are the people of Naples, and in the historic paintings, he also tends to focus on minor figures, where the artists were not so bound to traditional typologies as with the main figures of history. Especially in the marginal figures, the painters’ related interest in expressivity, the representation of emotions, tension, scepticism, eager anticipation, horror, and exuberance is reflected – quite across the historical distance. In his large photographic portrait cycle, Mimmo Jodice is not interested in creating a portrait gallery, but rather in making visible and capturing “expressive moments”. He sees the same vocabulary of expression across the centuries, so that in his diptychs and group portraits, Neapolitan conversations are conducted across the times.
From May, 18th until August, 15th, 2011 the Museum Louvre, Paris, devotes Mimmo Jodice the solo show “Mimmo Jodice – The Louvre’s Eyes”.
Mimmo Jodice was born in Naples in 1934. An active photographer since the 1970’s, he has also taught photography at the Naples Academy. His work having become a beacon for contemporary Italian photography, it has been widely exposed through countless exhibitions and international publications.