The Diplomat in Spain

Until 29 June, the Instituto Italiano de Cultura of Madrid (Calle Mayor, 86) presents in its exhibition spaces the exhibition Palermo Mon Amour, an unprecedented “deepening” in the history of a contradictory and visionary city, returned through the lens of the camera of extraordinary authors such as: Enzo Sellerio, Letizia Battaglia, Franco Zecchin, Fabio Sgroi and Lia Pasqualino.

After the success achieved at the Fondazione Merz in Turin, the Institute presents this exhibition in an exceptional way, and thanks to the collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes, the exhibition project is enriched with the gaze of Begoña Zubero, with a selection of photographs taken during her long stay in Palermo during the year 2020.

The exhibition, curated by Valentina Greco, presents, through the eyes of five Italian photographers, a vision of the history of Palermo from the 1950s to 1992, exploring the poetic imaginary of a city in continuous “deflagration” and not always recomposed in its complexity. The gentle, jocular, cultured and anti-rhetorical vision that characterises the 50s and 60s, torn by scenes of misery and degradation, but also crossed by a tension towards civil and economic renaissance, is followed by the turbulent 70s, the revolutions of the punk movement, the student demonstrations and the fiercely chronicled events that punctuate the daily life of Palermo until 1992, the year in which it seemed that everything could change.

Men and women emerge from the black and white: symbols such as the magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino; or Letizia Battaglia, herself photographed by Lia Pasqualino and Franco Zecchin. They also highlight the portrait of ordinary people, all spectators and at the same time protagonists of a history and of a humanity in continuous evolution. The photo in the news item, taken in 1984 by Franco Zecchin, shows the funeral of Giuseppe Impastato, a communist militant murdered by the Mafia.

The title of the exhibition is inspired by the novel Hiroshima Mon Amour by Marguerite Duras. The exhibition is conceived as a visual promenade, with a fast-paced rhythm and full of encounters that travels through Palermo through more than sixty medium and large format photographs, composing the mosaic-portrait of a city in a constant state of exception, of which photography, along with writing and theatre, have been attentive observers and protagonists. The exhibition is part of the PhotoEspaña 2024 programme.