Noticias
From May 5th to July 27th
An exhibition in San Carlos reveals unsuspected secrets of Vatican´s exclusive spaces
May 05, 2017The Italian photographer Massimo Listri’s look is guided by precise parameters, symmetry and classical geometry that seeks a vanishing point, which allows us to enter in the photo, curator of the exhibition Massimo Listri. The splendor of papal Rome, Georgio Antei says.
Opened on the night of May 4th at the National Museum of San Carlos, the exhibition made up of 54 images taken between 2011 and 2016 by one of the most important figures in the cultural outlook, offers the viewer a tour of the Vatican galleries.
The photographs show the interiors of the Apostolic Library and the Pio Clementino and Gregoriano Profano museums, all belonging to the Vatican Museums as a whole.
Thanks to a special apostolic pass, Listri was able to access the ad libitum Museums, alone, day and night. According to this privilege his photographs captured invisible things to the eyes of the public of the Vatican Museums, as well as galleries, patios and rooms of great architectural beauty.
At the opening ceremony, Lidia Camacho, general director of the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA, for its acronym in Spanish), described Massimo Listri as one of the great contemporary creators, who sensitively dominates the art of photography.
"His projects cover large areas, numerous buildings, and many works. He says that when he takes a photograph he does it as if it were the first time a treasure is revealed, whether it's an empty room or the Vatican's jewels”.
In the opinion of the head of INBA, after seeing the show, the eyes of the public will be "practically clean" to admire the soul and essence of the places as if no one had looked at them before.
Georgio Antei explained that Listri’s photographs have a double value, on the one hand the Vatican Museum and on the other hand, the photographer’s eye. "It's not just about the inside of a museum, but about how that inside is interpreted”.
"We live in an age of over-vision, in which we produce many images and get lost in them. In this exhibition there is a principle of order, our brain is happy to find parameters to see the photos”.
He added that behind each large-format photograph there is a story of the photographer's encounter with architecture and objects, or the history of these objects.
In addition to the architectural spaces, the exhibition shows a series of photographs of busts and sculptures, which Massimo Listri captured in close-up.
"The Vatican Museums host a collection of Greek and Roman sculptures. Massimo focused the faces of the sculptures to draw close-ups through which the viewer knows the Romans, what they thought, what they ate, what they wore.
"He focused every bust and sculpture in his own way, printing his style on each photograph. His look is not limited to capture a formal aspect but makes use of his psychological content and biographical sense”, Antei explained.
The exhibition offers a speech in which the marbles of Michelangelo, Boticelli's brushes, Pompeian mosaics and libraries, which together constitute the peak of the artist's career, stand out.
Also present at the opening ceremony were: the artist, the Italian ambassador to Mexico, Luigi Maccotta, and the director of the museum Carmen Gaytán.
The exhibition Massimo Listri. Splendors of papal Rome, which reveals the unsuspected secrets of exclusive spaces for high-level clerics, will be on display until July 27th at the National Museum of San Carlos. Hours: Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. General admission $ 45. On Sundays, the entrance is free.
Mexico,Distrito Federal
