LETIZIA BATTAGLIA .Just for passion MAXXI is dedicating an anthological exhibition to the great Sicilian artist with over 250 photographs testifying to 40 years of Italian life and society 24 November 2016 – 17 April 2017 #LetiziaBattaglia | #PerPuraPassione www.fondazionemaxxi.it Born in Palermo in 1935 and known throughout the world for her photos of the mafia, Letizia Battaglia has provided and continues to provide one of the most extraordinary and acute visual testimonies to Italian life and society, in particular that of Sicily.Recognised as one of the most important figures in contemporary photography for the civic and ethical value of her work, Letizia Battaglia is not only the “photographer of the mafia” but also, through her artistic work and as a photo reporter for the daily newspaper L’Ora , the first woman and in 1985 in New York she became the first European photographer to receive the prestigious international W. Eugene Smith Award , the international prize commemorating the Life photographer . Shortly after the celebrations for her 80 th birthday, MAXXI is organizing LETIZIA BATTAGLIA.Just for passion , a major exhibition curated by Paolo Falcone, Margherita Guccione and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi , that from 24 November 2016 through to 17 April 2017 brings to MAXXI over 250 photographs, contact sheets and previously unseen vintage prints from the archive of this great artist, along with magazines, publications, films and interviews. Visual testimony to the bloodiest mafia atrocities and and social and political reality of Italy, a number of her shots are firmly embedded in the collective consiousness: Giovanni Falcone at the funeral of the General Dalla Chiesa ; Piersanti Mattarella asassinated in the arms of his brother Sergio; the widow of Vito Schifano ; the boss Leoluca Bagarella following his arrest; Giulio Andreotti with Nino Salvo . “I am particularly happy with this exhibition”, says Giovanna Melandri, president of Fondazione MAXXI, “with which we celebrate not only the extraordinary work of the photographer Letizia Battaglia, but also her social commitment, her militant passion that has seen her incessantly on the front line for diverse causes: legality, women’s issues, enviornmental problems, prisoners’ rights. A commitment that has brought her numerous prizes and awards around the world.” THE EXHIBITION Organized in two macro areas, the exhibitions intends to provide a 360° overview of multi-faceted, courageous and indefatigable personalità of Letizia Battglia and represent the complexity of her interests in photography, publishing. experimental theatre and politics. These aspects are explored in the documentary section that opens the exhibition and recounts her intensive and varied work of a social nature. There are examples of her work as a photo-reporter in Palermo and Milan ,such as her first photo spread depicting the prostitute Enza Montoro , dated 1969 and published in the daily newspaper L’Ora , for which she worked for over twenty years, photographs of occupations, of protests in the piazzas, of political rallies in the Seventies in Milan, those of the new creative scene in Milan that led her to meet and portray Pier Paolo Pasolini and Franca Rame and which are leaving her archives for the first time for this occasion . Another previously unseen series exhibited at MAXXI for the first time is the one created in 1983 in the psychiatric hospital in Via Pindemonte in Palermo: Battaglia collaborated extensively with the “Real Casa dei Matti”, organizing theatre workshops and activities that would converge into the films Festa d’agosto and Vatinni , presented here for the first time after thirty years.This nucleus of works will be acquired by MAXXI for its permanent collection. Then there is the story of the photographer’s extensive publishing career with magazines such as GRANDEVU’, Edizioni della battaglia,Mezzocielo and her work as a director. A table at the centre of the room displays further previously unseen material from Letizia Battagli’s archive: contact sheets and files, notes, historic pages from L’Ora . Hung in Gallery 1, the exhibition also features the film, produced by the Municipality of Palermo and previewed at MAXXI, La mia Battaglia. Franco Maresco incontra Letizia Battaglia , an intense story of Palermo, the city that the artist has made known to the world. In the exhibition there is also the major installation ANTHOLOGIA , composed of 120 suspended large format images (66x100)in black and white portraying the places and victims of Mafia assassinations, but also the lives and faces of Palermo society. Images of pain, poverty, death, wealth, hope and rebellion sketch out a multi-voiced narrative illustrating a historic period spanning more than forty years. In the photos on Mafia investigations , Battaglia portrayed judges, police officers and men from institutions at the front line in the battle against Cosa Nostra: from Giorgio Boris Giuliano to Ninni Cassarà , the judge Cesare Terranova , the President of the Region of Sicily Piersanti Mattarella , General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa and Giovanni Falcone . Numerous photos from the Politici e mafia series are on display, including those of Salvo Lima and Vito Ciancimino , leading figures in the events involving the entwinement of politics and the Mafia.The photograph of Giulio Andreotti with the Mafioso Nino Salvo is emblematic: found by the Anti-Mafia Pool in Battaglia’s archives, it became central to one of the main charges in the trial against the Christian Democrat leader.Among the main Mafia members portrayed by Battaglia, we find little-known figures as well as men such as Leoluca Bagarella, shown while being arrested. This picture became an icon in the struggle against Mafia crimes. The Eighties were especially prolific for Battaglia. In addition to news photos, she portrayed society in general, moments of everyday life, women and children in the city’s lower-class districts .Alongside them, she also captured the bourgeoisie and nobility of Palermo , which played a leading role in parties and receptions, as well as processions, funerals and religious celebrations .Her experimentation continued in the Nineties, with re-elaborations, in which the female figure is overlaid on violent historic pictures. Many of the photographs in the exhibition are among the 240 published in the extensive book ANTHOLOGY published by Drago (2016). On the occasion of the exhibition at MAXXI, the book is accompanied by a second volume relating to the exposition LETIZIA BATTAGLIA. Just for passion . The press kit and images of the exhibition can be downloaded from the Reserved Area of the Fondazione MAXXI’s website at http://www.fondazionemaxxi.it/area-riservata/ by typing in the password areariservatamaxxi MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Arts www.fondazionemaxxi.it - info:06.320.19.54; [email protected] opening hours:11:00 AM – 7:00 PM (Tues, Weds, Thurs, Fri, Sun) | 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM (Sat) | closed Mondays Admittance free for students of art architecture from Tuesday to Friday MAXXI PRESS OFFICE +39 06 324861 [email protected] LETIZIA BATTAGLIA . Per pura passione Giovanna Melandri President Fondazione MAXXI Letizia Battaglia’s photos have a quality about them that only artists know how to convey. Letizia herself once said to me that everybody takes photos these days, but that changes nothing: everyone knows how to hold a pen, yet very few can write a great novel. Letizia’s pictures draw us into the most tragic events, feelings and contexts, telling us a story that regards us directly even if it is far removed, stirring our conscience even if we think we are immune to certain abysses. In short, her photos possess the power of art. Letizia – I will use her first name because we met many years ago, together with Alex Langer – is a beloved travel companion of my generation, thanks to her commitment to lawfulness, the environment and feminism. Perhaps without even knowing it, many people have walked a section of their road with her in everyday life, in movements and in institutions. The great thing is that Letizia has been a teacher without ever having posed as one, instead seeking to accompany our dreams, anger, disappointments and plans. Harrowing and full of light, her images have punched us in the stomach many times, while also stimulating our minds. First and foremost, they have never taken away the freedom of our eyes, emotions and hopes. Her way of invoking justice, fighting the Mafia, consoling the victims and the oppressed, stripping power bare or illustrating the gracefulness of young girls is the result of her liberation as a woman, a photographer and an intellectual, which she has conquered step by step through her passion and determination. It is the result of an unmistakable human dimension of pure passion. A common thread binds several pages of her personality, with all the contradictions and rifts that she has always defended, both in public and in private: the photography that has brought her to the world’s attention, the policy of small but significant achievements and pointless liturgies, voluntary work and the theatre, and, last but not least, her wonderful publications, which we wanted to document extensively in the exhibition. Organizing this wonderful and highly original anthological exhibition is a unique opportunity for MAXXI. It is not a rhetorical tribute, which she would have swiftly returned to sender. It is not a cold review, a catalogue of horrors and illusions to be flicked through as if they were remote history. Letizia Battaglia’s shots never fail to disturb us, move us and arouse our indignation, although today it is possible that even a great photographer like her would struggle to depict an increasingly concealed and almost domesticated Mafia. In this exhibition curated by Margherita Guccione, Bartolomeo Pietromarchi and Paolo Falcone, you will be dismayed to see the victims and tormentors, the blood and pain, the heroes and sphinxes that at a certain moment she decided to stop portraying, devastated by the pain of having lost friends and key figures such as Chinnici, Falcone and Borsellino.