Eros has always been one of the ‘key’ themes of photographic research: easy to imagine, much more difficult to represent. ‘Erotica’, a collective photography exhibition that opens on Monday 1st July at 7pm at the Officine Forte Marghera in Venice, is dedicated to the infinite ways of developing it. The exhibition sees 48 contemporary authors reinterpret the shots of the great masters of twentieth-century world photography: Jean Agélou, František Drtikol, Man Ray, Horst P. Horst, Bunny Yeager, Carlo Mollino, Helmut Newton, Jeanloup Sieff, Sylvie Blum.
On display are over 190 erotic photographs against the backdrop of a century of historical, social and cultural changes, with images capable of translating the creators’ intentions into visual suggestions: that is, to study the aesthetics and poetics of artists of the past to propose “unprecedented visions and titillating reflections”. Proposed with a chronological criterion, the works mark the story of eros as in a walk through time, stimulating a reflection on the evolution of individual and collective sensitivity and taste.
But the exhibition is enriched by numerous collateral activities: in fact, for each day of the two weeks of the exhibition there will be meetings, conversations, theoretical lessons and practical demonstrations, curated by some of the authors and organizers. Of particular note are the two Saturday events (July 6 and 13), aimed at raising awareness on the perception of one’s physicality and the propensity for eroticism after recovery from serious illnesses.