Massimo Vitali Artist

Massimo Vitali was born in Como in 1944. He lives and works in Lucca and Berlin. He moved to London after high school, where he studied Photography at the London College of Printing. In the early Sixties he started working as a photojournalist, collaborating with many magazines and agencies in Italy and in Europe. It was during this time that he met Simon Guttmann, the founder of the agency, Report, who was to become fundamental in Massimo's growth as a "Concerned Photographer". At the beginning of the Eighties a growing mistrust in the belief that photography had an absolute capacity to reproduce the subtleties of reality led to a change in his career path. He began working as a cinematographer for television and cinema. However, his relationship with the still camera never ceased, and he eventually turned his attention back to “photography as a means of artistic research”. His series of Italian beach panoramas began in the light of drastic political changes in Italy. Massimo started to observe his fellow countrymen very carefully. He depicted a "sanitized, complacent view of Italian normalities", at the same time revealing "the inner conditions and disturbances of normality: its cosmetic fakery, sexual innuendo, commodified leisure, deluded sense of affluence, and rigid conformism". Over the past 12 years he has developed a new approach to portraying the world, illuminating the apotheosis of the Herd, expressing and commenting through the most intriguing, palpable forms of contemporary art- Photography. Recent solo exhibitions include: Benrubi Gallery, New York (2017); Ronchini Gallery, London (2016); Studio La città, Verona (2014); Erich Lindenberg Art Foundation, Porza (2014), Bonni Benrubi, New York (2013), Galeria Claire Fontaine, Luxembourg (2013), Art Loft, Berlin (2013), Crown Gallery, Brussels (2013), Fotografia Europea 2012, Reggio Emilia (2012), PhotoMed, Sanary sur Mer (2012), Brancolini Grimaldi, London (2011), Baro' Galeria, São Paulo (2011), LOOK3, Charlottesville (2011), Galerie du Jour, Paris (2010), M + B, Los Angeles (2010), Galerie Ernst Hilger at Brot Kunsthalle, Vienna (2010), Centro de Arte Santa Monica In/Out, Barcelona (2010), Foam, Amsterdam (2009), Vintage Green Core Club, New York (2009), Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato (2004), 49^ Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2001). Recent group exhibitions include: Italian Embassy, Metternich Palace, Vienna (2017); Extraordinary visions. L'Italia ci guarda, MAXXI – Museo delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Rome (2016); Inside Out, Palazzo della Ragione, Milan (2015); Addio Anni '70. Arte a Milano 1969-1980 Palazzo Reale, Milan (2012); Shared Spaces Photo Espana, Royal Botanical Gardens, Madrid (2012); Panorama sur les 20 ans d'une collection, Centre Mediterraneen de la Photographie, Corsica (2011); Steidl. Quand la photo devient livre, La Monnaie, Paris (2010); Detour, The Moleskin Notebook Experience, Bund 18, Shanghai (2010); Human Rites, Bass Museum, Miami (2010).