A great international artist arrives in Catania with an unpublished exhibition, produced and organized by Fondazione Oelle Mediterraneo Antico and curated by Filippo Maggia. The selection reveals an approach that has been little explored until now within the rich artistic production left by the Milanese photographer Gabriele Basilico. Basilico’s intermediate territories are physical spaces and appear almost tangible to the eye, but also mental spaces, induced in the observer by the voids, by the absences determined by pauses and silences in the visual construction of the image. The thickness of the light and the perspective choice adopted by Basilico contribute to determining the formal balance between the volumes, inducing a correct reading of the image, through that act of suspension and contemplation often underlined by the photographer himself as a fundamental moment in the observation of the landscape, whatever its nature and presentation.

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Gabriele Basilico (Milan, 12 August 1944 – 13 February 2013) was one of the greatest Italian photographers and is considered one of the masters of contemporary Italian and European photography. In his vast body of work reflecting on the transformations of urbanized territories in the transition from the industrial to the post-industrial era, the theme of the city as a complex and refined product of the economy and history occupies a central place. With different methods but always faithful to the documentary style, he created an uninterrupted narration of places, investigating numerous European and world cities and at the same time placing them in relation to each other, restoring the extraordinary articulation of the urban scenarios in which contemporary man lives. Basilico was one of the greatest interpreters of urban landscape photography, admired and followed even beyond national borders, winner of numerous awards including the “Osella d’oro per la fotografia d’architettura contemporanea” at the Venice Biennale. His works are part of international public and private collections (including MAXXI, International Center of Photography New York, MoMA New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Stedelijk Museum, Centre Georges Pompidou) and have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world.