Elisabetta Catalano Gilbert&George di fronte a Gilbert&George

cm 40 x 60 cad./ cm 40 x 60 each

At the end of the 1960s, in addition to her success as the portraitist of the world of culture and show business, Elisabetta Catalano often collaborated with behavioral and conceptual artists such as Alighiero Boetti, Gino De Dominicis, Joseph Beuys, Sandro Chia, Enzo Cucchi, Francesco Clemente, Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto and many other protagonists of those years. These meetings fostered some closed door photographic performances with artists such as Fabio Mauri, Vettor Pisani and Cesare Tacchi, in which Catalano developed an active dialogue that surpassed portraits or documentation and started to compose iconic images. The series with Gilbert & George is one of the most interesting examples of the rapport created between the artists and the photographer for the documentation of avant-garde actions. The work of the two English “sculptors” is characterized by the rejection of academic techniques. Gilbert & George appear directly to the public as living sculptures in their performances or realize images that represent their “sculptural” life. In 1972, Gilbert & George exhibited a series of large drawings entitled "A new sculpture" in the Roman branch of Galleria Sperone, and during the show they realized a performance for Elisabetta Catalano. In the images, the photography creates a symmetry between the artists and their works. Gilbert & George are always portrayed in front of their respective charcoal portraits, but the inclination of the figures in the drawings is opposite to that of the pose taken by the two performers. Catalano’s photographic series thus realizes an overlay of living sculptures and charcoal on paper sculptures, in which the distinction between the work and the authors, between art and life, tends to mingle in the expert construction of the photographic document.

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M. Minini (ed.), Elisabetta Catalano: Action Portrait, exhibition catalogue (Brescia, Galleria Massimo Minini), Brescia 2004. L. Cherubini (ed.), Elisabetta Catalano: le fotografie, exhibition catalogue (Turin, GAM-Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea), Turin 2005. E. Catalano, Some Portraits, Brescia 2006.

Foto Elisabetta Catalano

Ministry

Photography