Mario Cresci:
Geometries / Epiphanies
14 Mar—24 Jun 2025Geometries / Epiphanies is the first exhibition in the UK of photographer Mario Cresci, curated by Luca Fiore. Presenting works created from 1967 to 2025, the exhibition focuses on Cresci’s experimental photography practice, which drew inspiration from Pop Art, Conceptual art and Industrial design, and his long-term artistic project documenting the southern Italian town of Matera. Cresci is one of the key voices of Italian photography belonging to an avant-garde generation, including Luigi Ghirri and Guido Guidi, who brought the medium into the realm of contemporary art.
In the early 1970s, Cresci collaborated with the interdisciplinary research group Polis to produce an urban study of Matera, a town that had become a symbol of southern Italian ‘backwardness’ in the years following the publication of Carlo Levi’s memoir ‘Cristo si è fermato a Eboli’. Cresci was encouraged to use his camera to open dialogues with local residents and give them an opportunity to represent themselves through their histories and traditions, such as farming and craftsmanship. The project resulted in a series of images that continue to be influential in Cresci’s artistic practice to this day. During his many years in Matera, Cresci focused on the region’s material culture, particularly the objects crafted by local artisans, such as tools and hand-carved wooden toys, which the artist interpreted as a portal to the town’s culture, memory, and sentiment.
Throughout his career Cresci has regularly returned to Matera and nearby towns to use the material and objects he had collected during his early years in the area. One example is Cresci’s ‘Scanprint’ series, in which he generated new images of Matera's handicraft objects using a digital scanner, subverting traditional photographic methods.
Cresci also developed his experimental photography techniques in work outside of Matera. In 1968 the artist moved to Rome, where the L’Attico gallery commissioned him to photograph exhibitions of leading figures in the Italian art scene at the time, including Pino Pascali, Jannis Kounellis, Eliseo Mattiacci, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Alighiero Boetti. Here he developed the conviction that photography could no longer be simply exhibited by hanging it on a wall.
“I think of my work as a circular path where change is from time to time, not a past that has been overcome, but the possibility of a future reinterpretation." - Mario Cresci
Mario Cresci, born 1942 in Chiavari, Italy, lives and works in Bergamo.
Cresci attended the school of Industrial Design in Venice, and currently teaches at the Fondazione Fotografia in Modena and at the ISIA University in Urbino. He has held solo exhibitions at museums and institutions including MAXXI, National Museum of 21st Centrury Arts, Rome, CAMERA-Centro Italiano per la Fotografia, Torino, FMAV, Palazzo Santa Margherita, Modena, and GAMeC-The Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo. Important publications include Matera. Immagini e Documenti (1975), Misurazioni. Fotografia e Territorio (1979) and Segni Migranti (2019), winner of the Prix du Livre Historique, at Les Rencontres de la Photographie 2020 of Arles.
Luca Fiore is a writer, critic and curator of photography based in Milan, Italy. He is a regular contributor to Aperture, Il Foglio, Domani, Il Giornale dell’Arte and Tracce. He curated the exhibition ‘Mon cher Abbé Bionaz! Mario Cresci for the Aosta Valley’, at Museo Castello Gamba in Châtillon in 2023.
In the early 1970s, Cresci collaborated with the interdisciplinary research group Polis to produce an urban study of Matera, a town that had become a symbol of southern Italian ‘backwardness’ in the years following the publication of Carlo Levi’s memoir ‘Cristo si è fermato a Eboli’. Cresci was encouraged to use his camera to open dialogues with local residents and give them an opportunity to represent themselves through their histories and traditions, such as farming and craftsmanship. The project resulted in a series of images that continue to be influential in Cresci’s artistic practice to this day. During his many years in Matera, Cresci focused on the region’s material culture, particularly the objects crafted by local artisans, such as tools and hand-carved wooden toys, which the artist interpreted as a portal to the town’s culture, memory, and sentiment.
Throughout his career Cresci has regularly returned to Matera and nearby towns to use the material and objects he had collected during his early years in the area. One example is Cresci’s ‘Scanprint’ series, in which he generated new images of Matera's handicraft objects using a digital scanner, subverting traditional photographic methods.
Cresci also developed his experimental photography techniques in work outside of Matera. In 1968 the artist moved to Rome, where the L’Attico gallery commissioned him to photograph exhibitions of leading figures in the Italian art scene at the time, including Pino Pascali, Jannis Kounellis, Eliseo Mattiacci, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Alighiero Boetti. Here he developed the conviction that photography could no longer be simply exhibited by hanging it on a wall.
“I think of my work as a circular path where change is from time to time, not a past that has been overcome, but the possibility of a future reinterpretation." - Mario Cresci
Mario Cresci, born 1942 in Chiavari, Italy, lives and works in Bergamo.
Cresci attended the school of Industrial Design in Venice, and currently teaches at the Fondazione Fotografia in Modena and at the ISIA University in Urbino. He has held solo exhibitions at museums and institutions including MAXXI, National Museum of 21st Centrury Arts, Rome, CAMERA-Centro Italiano per la Fotografia, Torino, FMAV, Palazzo Santa Margherita, Modena, and GAMeC-The Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo. Important publications include Matera. Immagini e Documenti (1975), Misurazioni. Fotografia e Territorio (1979) and Segni Migranti (2019), winner of the Prix du Livre Historique, at Les Rencontres de la Photographie 2020 of Arles.
Luca Fiore is a writer, critic and curator of photography based in Milan, Italy. He is a regular contributor to Aperture, Il Foglio, Domani, Il Giornale dell’Arte and Tracce. He curated the exhibition ‘Mon cher Abbé Bionaz! Mario Cresci for the Aosta Valley’, at Museo Castello Gamba in Châtillon in 2023.