Stanislao Farri. L’archivio dell’utopia
Curators di Laura Gasparini e Monica Leoni
Stanislao Farri’s photographic archive has been acquired by the Panizzi Library since 1995, and consists of nearly 170,000 negative and positive units, proof sheets and slides illustrating the intense professional and research activity the author started in 1955.
The exhibition and its catalogue allow us to rediscover the archive made available to users through an operation of reorganization and inventory management that highlighted half a century of local history. Stanislao Farri’s work, in fact, focuses on documenting the different aspects of local heritage in terms of culture, folklore and industry, including landscapes that are presented as part of a “widespread museum”.
The author’s photographic research is typically consistent over time, which in turn is a fundamental concept for understanding both Farri’s work method and the different cultural identities that have transformed the town and the surrounding territory over the years. His professional activity crosses over his amateur research, allowing for a free personal and technical experimentation, tracing an artistic development based on an innovative use of new photosensitive materials, thus framing a style that found its recognition in the photographic world from the Sixties until the Eighties of the twentieth century.
