Paolo Gasparini (born in 1934 in Gorizia, in the region of Friuli, Italy) immigrated to Venezuela – Little Venice – in 1954. Marked bycinema images, he set off to Genoa with the book by the anti-fascist writer Elio Vittorini, Conversazione in Sicilia, in his bag. His initial portraits and other numerous photographs recall the work of Paul Strand and Walker Evans, yet Paolo Gasparini lost no time in exploring the boundaries of still images. Literature, cinema and photography continue to overlap in his work. He was in Cuba from 1961 to 1965. Revolutionary euphoria had reached its height. In 1972, Paolo Gasparini published Para verte mejor América Latina(All the better to see you, Latin America). In this book, the symbols of a brutal economic neoliberalism conflict with the political icons of the socialist revolution. Due to this conflict of images, his photographs are real feats in terms of their form as well as content. Comprising fragments, pieces, reflections and inversions, they become images among the many images. Latinopolispresents an impressive photo wall mural,called El Ángel de la Historia (The Angel of History), produced by the artist especially for the exhibition.
The exhibition at the Fondation A Stichtinghas been organised thanks to support from Toluca Fine Art, Paris. It coincides with the publication of the booklet, Paolo Gasparini, El Ángel de la Historia(Caracas: Mal de Ojo, 2018).
Exhibition curators: Jean-Paul Deridder, Alexis Fabry.
