The era of digital counterfeiting is also, by reaction, the era of revealed artifice, of the search for imperfect authenticity and of the attraction for what is non-standard. In this context, what needs do those narratives respond to which, above all, in the world of advertising and fashion communication, are based on the re-proposal of aspirational and unreal models?
Can they still provide an answer to our search for identity combined with the increasingly widespread need to reflect ourselves in what is proposed to us? So can they achieve the purpose for which they were built? These are the questions from which this project starts.
The series is made up of photographic details of pages of fashion magazines in which stereotyped images of beauty, which have always symbolically represented our aspiration for harmony and the desire for charm and seduction, are transformed into fiery or ashen faces. Photographs of photographs in which the beauty eternalized in the advertising representation takes the form of an earthly contingency.
Beauty today as a value to be redefined and called into question.
The viewing of Intonti's photos will be accompanied by a technical commentary by the author and a critical/semiotic note by Giulia Rossi. The topics of discussion will be very varied: Is fashion still able to impose models? If yes, which ones? Beautiful versus authentic, can they coexist? Take for example the image “ugly but good” biscuits. The paradox of the anomaly that becomes a trend and is cannibalized by it.
GIULIA ROSSI: journalist and teacher of Communication and Fashion Semiotics
Since 2013 he has taught fashion communication and semiotics. He currently holds courses at La Sapienza University of Rome, at the European Institute of Design in Rome and Florence and at John Cabot and Richmond Universities. Previously he held lectures at the University of Bologna, at the Istituto Marangoni in Milan, at the IAAD in Bologna, at the LUISS Business School in Rome and at Polimoda in Florence. He has published the volumes Denim, a story of cotton and art (Fashion Illustrated, 2010), Recipes for life in society (Pendragon, 2013), Fashion blogger, new dandy? Communicating fashion online (Pendragon, 2015) and Digital Fashion Media. How the way of communicating fashion has changed (Nuova Cultura, 2018).l His latest publication is the semiotic dictionary "M for fashion" in which he deals with the theme in relation to art, cinema, literature and music. On this occasion it will be possible to sign copies.
FABRIZIO INTONTI, a recognized photography artist.
After graduating in Philosophy, Intonti dedicated himself to the work of an author and to the visual arts, concentrating for a short period on painting, then on analogue and above all digital photography. He worked a lot with portrait photography, with a variety of subjects and then also genres, from architecture to street photography to landscape. He has created a series of projects that demonstrate a diversified approach to the photographic medium, from exploration in black and white film to contamination with digital, always with the aim of highlighting the extraordinary aspects that can be found in the ordinary. Some of his photographic works, for which he has obtained well-known international recognition (International Photo Awards, Prix de la Photographie de Paris) have a multidisciplinary approach, in others ("Netaphors", 2012) he has confronted the world of algorithms and images present on the web before the birth of artificial intelligence. He has published his works with some magazines (Sette del Corriere della Sera, Il reportage, “IL” del Sole24ore) and publishing houses (Mondadori, Imprimatur, Darkos) for the creation of book covers.
