Gianni Berengo Gardin: room with a Venetian view

Venezia 1960 - Sul vaporetto.

The exhibition 'Gianni Berengo Gardin. La Venezia del maestro del bianco e nero' (Venice of the master of black and white), however, tells a different story, with almost lyrical tones: the story of the photographs taken by Berengo Gardin from the windows of the top floor of Palazzo Bollani Erizzo, overlooking the Grand Canal a stone's throw from the Rialto Bridge. Five centuries earlier, that had been the home of Pietro Aretino, and the photographer was fascinated by the possibility of being able to look with his own eyes at the same views that the Renaissance poet and writer had looked at hundreds of years before, and tell the story of Venice from that privileged angle.

Those shots later became part of the book 'La più gioconda veduta del mondo. Venice from a window', but 36 original prints Berengo Gardin wanted to donate to the Venice Foundation in 2021 out of esteem and friendship: they are photos that testify how, although the means and gestures of daily life in the lagoon city had changed over the centuries, the spirit and essence of the city, its beauty, had remained unchanged, in this living, stratified place that continues to tell stories and people.

With his craftsmanship, master of a documentary, humanistic photography, with his shots certainly 'sought after' but never constructed, GBG reminds us that his art is made up of aesthetics and ethics: 'real photography', as in the stamp he put on the back of the photos 'not corrected, modified or computer invented'. Like life.

"Gianni Berengo Gardin. La Venezia del maestro del bianco e nero", Venice, Palazzo Flangini-Fondazione di Venezia, Cannaregio, until 30 June