Barbieri's investigation originally focused on artificial lighting in the cities of Europe and Asia, especially after his visits to China. In the mid-Nineties, he began to adopt a new photographic technique that makes it possible to keep only a few points of the image in focus. Always keenly attuned to the mutations of the metropolis, Barbieri probes the memories of places as they evolve, altering their shapes and proportions, because, as he himself says, 'There are different ways of both designing and inhabiting the city. The world is not definitive'.
The project site specific_ 08 11, which he undertook in 2003, presents images of cities and infrastructure seen from above as if they were scale models, in which the center and the fringes — fundamental parts of our identity — are re-envisioned in a startling new way. The photos are all taken from a helicopter, and this unusual perspective imbues the compositions with new meaning.
In addition to color, the images have begun to employ black and white, creating a constant interplay of positive and negative that achieves a precarious equilibrium in dialogue with perspective.
"I took my first aerial photo as a child, the first time I flew in a small airplane," Barbieri says. "I took it with a twin-lens reflex camera, and to reach the window I had to turn it upside down. They were just a few black and white photos, and I still remember the amazed reaction of the neighbourhood photographer who developed them, when he saw the image of our town square."
Through 28 July 2012
Galleria Massimo Minini
Via Apollonio 68 – 25128 Brescia
Monday to Friday 10:00 – 19:30
Saturday 15:30 – 19:30