© Herb Ritts
Auditoriumexpo Viale Pietro de Coubertin 30 00196 Rome Italie
On Tuesday 10th December the exhibition In piena luce. Fotografie di Herb Ritts inaugurated at AuditoriumExpo of Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome. The exhibition is the first event of the new initiative Auditorium Fotografia. In piena luce, a production of Fondazione Musica per Roma and Fondazione FORMA per la Fotografia, in collaboration with the Herb Ritts Foundation and Contrasto, will be opened until March 2014.
Creator of the most vivid, dreamy and perfect images of the Hollywoodi star system, Herb Ritts has been a great interpreter of international photography. His are many portraits that have indeed built the image of celebrities such as Madonna, Michael Jackson or Richard Gere. His the slick and dreamlike fashion photographs, where shining Versace dresses and perfect body of models are immersed in an intense and nebulous light.
Specifically created for AuditoriumExpo, In piena luce is an exceptional retrospective of Herb Ritts’ images: the most famous as well as others that have never been shown, coming from the Herb Ritts Foundation in Los Angeles. On display more than 100 exquisite photographs in different sizes: from the impressive platinum prints, to a series of medium-size gelatin silver prints, to the amazing blow-ups. The celebrated portraits, the fashion photographs, his work on the human body, the extraordinary images of California, the outstanding reportage on Africa.
Herb Ritt’s style is unmistakable, nourished by an intense gaze — an idealizing gaze — that arrived at the right moment. A sensitive and cultured man, passionate about art and history of photography, Ritts studied classical compositions, the plasticity of the dialogue between figures in Renaissance art, as well as in the photography of the early twentieth century.
Captivated by the formal rigor of the German photographer Herbert List (his fundamental inspirer for numerous images), he sought to understand the mystery that lies beneath those perfect compositions of lights and volumes that, often distractely and frivolously, are simply called « fashion photographs ».
© Herb Ritts
How to recreate on photographic paper the silky touch of a shimmering fabric, how to maintain the magical aura of pleasure emanated by an haute couture dress, how to relate the sultry air of a sunny day to the wind, the desert sand, a model’s skin? All the images invented by Ritt's imagination and professionalism stem from his work on these themes and from the possibility to find continuously fresh solutions and responses for every image.
His eye fed on natural elements — the wind, light and landscape of California, the horizon stretching as far as the eye can see, the immense spaces — which entered each of his photos. The result is a precious and rare combination, ingenious yet simple, of all these ingredients.
Like his work on statuesque nudes, on African atmospheres, also Ritts' portraits seem inimitable, each one the result of a deep understanding, an intellectual affinity, often even a friendship. It was to him that Madonna turned for the construction of her multiform image and for the photo used on the cover of True Blue, her first successful album.
Likewise, Liz Taylor, another of the photographer's great friends, entrusted the fragility of her body to his camera: her white head, almost completely shaved after an operation for a brain tumor, defiantly fills the photo frame, elegantly silhouetted against the black background. Or again, the sinuous boy of Tina Turner, the gaze and glasses of William Burroughs, and Dizzy Gillespie's balloon-like cheeks stretching across a white background.
In his portraits there is no standard, no set formula. For each one, the photographer comes up with a simple and original invention, made to measure, brilliant and perfect. And for each one of them, exactly as happened for the five top models, he realized an autonomous creation.
In piena luce is the second exhibition presented at AuditoriumExpo, a new space, inside Auditorium – Parco della Musica in Rome, dedicated to photography. Inaugurated last April, with the big exhibition LIFE – I grandi fotografi, AuditoriumExpo immediately achieved a great success due not only to its strategic position inside Auditorium, one of the most popular meeting place and event venue of Italy and the world, but also to its set-up and to the quality of the works showed. In a few months AuditoriumExpo has become a new benchmark for photography and art in Rome. Every year, two big international events will present to the public of Rome the most important authors and the most famous images. The exhibition will be accompanied by many side performances (meetings, conferences, films, etc.) about the subject of photography as an interpretation of contemporary life.