EXHIBITION BLANCO
BY ITALIAN PHOTOGRAPHER STEFANO DE LUIGI

November 16 – 29, 2023

Workshop, Stefano De Luigi: Thursday, 16 November 2023 at 5 pm

Opening of the exhibition: Thursday, 16 November 2023 at 7 pm

Coordinator: Slobodan Jovanović, senior curator MAA

Organizers: Vizualizator Festival and Museum of Applied Art

As part of THE VIZUALIZATOR FESTIVAL of Photogrphy, the Blanco exhibition by Italian photographer Stefano De Luigi will be held from November 16 to 29 at the “Anastas” Gallery at the Museum of Applied Art.

The Blanco exhibition showcases the issue of blindness in a challenging and deeply emotional manner. Photographer Stefano de Luigi explores this sensitive topic authentically, avoiding sentimentality and aesthetic exploitation of suffering. He confronts the audience with the absence of sight, an issue often avoided by most. This exhibition highlights the paradox of visual representation through those deprived of sight. The photographs are almost painful to observe, revealing what blind individuals will never be aware of—their own appearance. De Luigi refrains from using dramatic effects, contrasts, or lighting. His photographs are not staged. The fact that he abandons technical possibilities is intrinsically linked to the theme of blindness. Stefano directly focuses viewers on the problem of sightlessness and the question of human boundaries. Radical choices and strict focus further strip down the exhibition’s fundamental motif.

The Blanco exhibition raises crucial questions about the nature of visual presentation in a world saturated with visual content. Stefano De Luigi explores the boundaries of the visual world through his work, offering the audience not only exceptional photographs but also reflections on the power of the visual and its absence when faced with blindness.

Stefano De Luigi (born in Cologne, 1964) is an Italian photographer, who lived in Paris from 1989 to 1996, working as a photographer for the Louvre. To date, he has published six books: Pornoland (Thames & Hudson, 2004), Blanco (Trolley, 2010), iDyssey (Edition Bessard, 2017), Babel with artist Michela Battaglia (Postcart Edition, 2018), Pornoland Redux (self-published, 2021), and Il Bel Paese (L’Artiere Edizioni, 2023). He has received numerous awards, including four World Press Photo Awards (1998, 2007, 2010, 2011), the Eugene Smith Fellowship Grant (2008), Getty Grant for journalism photography, Days Japan (2010), and the Syngenta Award (2015). He is a collaborator of various international publications such as The New Yorker, Geo, Paris Match, Sterna, and Internationale.