Franco Fontana: Urbani

ATLAS Gallery is pleased to present Franco Fontana: Urbani, the second solo exhibition of the Italian master of colour photography held at the Gallery. The show is part of a series of celebrations in honour of Fontana’s 90th birthday and will feature works revolving around the subject of the city and his urban panoramas, spanning from 1965 to 2017 and will include rare vintage prints, unique Polaroids and collages. 

Born in the historic town of Modena in 1933, Fontana has left his mark in the history of photography by dedicating his entire career to colour, at a time when this was a much frowned upon medium. Fontana embraced his radical choice from the late 50s. During his seven decades-long career, Fontana has explored many subjects, though it can be argued that the true subject of each of his compositions is colour itself. The different objects that shape the colours are just a pretext, aconvenience. Colour is the undisputed protagonist. 

In Fontana’s urban landscapes, his photographic language reaches its full maturity; the manipulation of the depth of field that makes the landscape two-dimensional finds its apex, and a complete ‘geometrisation’ of the subject takes place. Taking a photograph is like framing a portion of our field of vision, extrapolating a segment of the reality in front of us. This operation is made radical by Fontana as he selects and merges elements different from those our brain would automatically aggregate. Where a natural line would lead us to divide the image, Fontana ignores it, and cuts elsewhere, subverting the natural couplings and the hierarchy of the objects. Fontana re-educates our eye, and somehow everything makes much more sense his way.

Franco Fontana: Urbani at ATLAS Gallery from 22 March – 4 May 2024. Private view on Thursday, 21 March 2024. RSVP is essential.