From Thursday 18 April to Friday 17 May 2013, the Pastificio Cerere Foundation presents a vast retrospective dedicated to the renowned portraitist Ghitta Carell (1899-1972). Curated by Diego Mormorio, in collaboration with an advisory board presided by Ottavio Celestino, Flavio Misciattelli, Stefano Palumbo and Marcello Smarrelli, the exhibition comprises over 150 photographs that recount the history of an era – the years between the 1930s and 50s – by way of its protagonists.
Initiated and supported by Elsa Peretti, President of the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation, in collaboration with the 3M Foundation – which made the photographs available for the occasion – the exhibition aims to contribute to a reevaluation of the figure of Ghitta Carell within the vital panorama of Italian photography, and Italian culture more broadly. On the one hand, the exhibition investigates the theme of the portrait as a fundamental issue in the history of visual representation and a central concern of modern art, and, on the other, examines the work of Ghitta Carell in relation to Italy’s historical and anthropological developments during the period covered by her activity.
The exhibition is arranged throughout the Pastificio Cerere, occupying the most suggestive spaces of the former industrial building: the original prints are installed in the former grain elevator, now the main exhibition space of the Pastificio Cerere Foundation; the photographs of the clergy are in the Studio d’arte contemporanea Pino Casagrande; the female portraits are in the Pastificio San Lorenzo restaurant; and the remainder of the work, more substantial in volume, in the Spazio Cerere.
