Olivo Barbieri: Site Specific

(Hardback)

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Site Specific

is a summary of Italian photographer Olivo Barbieri's ten-year project to record the world's cities in aerial photographs. On the one hand, the book offers remarkable documentation, by one of today's most thrilling image-makers, of 25 cities throughout the world. On the other, it is a narrative of Barbieri's ever-evolving approach to photography and his thoughts about the nature of the medium. Presented chronologically, the book begins with the distinctive tilt-shift photographs of Italian cities with which Barbieri first established his reputation, and which launched a popular stylistic movement for selective-focus photographs. As the series continued, with portrayals of cities all over the world, Barbieri introduced other devices and approaches to distort perceived realitysuch as playing with color, registration and the deletion or discoloring of particular detailsto dramatic effect. The result is a remarkable photo essay about twenty-first-century urban space and about photography itself. Stunningly designed and presented in a luxuriously large format, the book is introduced by Christopher Phillips.

Reviews

When it comes to capturing the distinct flavour of a city, no one does it quite like Olivo Barbieri. Wallpaper Playing with notions of positive and negative space, Barbieri isolates buildings to raise questions about how cities are planned and the buildings role in the urban context. The New York Times Barbieris work is a reminder that photography can play a critical role in our understanding of architecture and urban environments. The New York Times Site Specific is a stomach-twisting tour of familiar landscapes with references to modern art history Wired

Author Bio

Olivo Barbieri is a key figure in Italian contemporary art who has been featured several times at the Venice Biennale. His work has been exhibited at institutions, including the Hayward Gallery, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal; and Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MART), Rovereto, Italy. His photographs and films are in the collections of the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporneo, Seville, Spain; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; International Center of Photography, New York; and Galleria Civica dArte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAM), Turin, Italy. His work has been widely published; monographs of Barbieris photographs include The Dolomites Project (2011) and The Waterfall Project (2008). Olivo Barbieri is a key figure in Italian contemporary art who has been featured several times at the Venice Biennale. His work has been exhibited at institutions, including the Hayward Gallery, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal; and Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MART), Rovereto, Italy. His photographs and films are in the collections of the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporneo, Seville, Spain; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; International Center of Photography, New York; and Galleria Civica dArte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAM), Turin, Italy. His work has been widely published; monographs of Barbieris photographs include The Dolomites Project (2011) and The Waterfall Project (2008). Christopher Phillips is curator at the International Center if Photography in New York and is a widely published critic and photography historian. Previously senior editor at Art in America, Phillips has written many books, including The New Vision: Photography Between the World Wars (1989) and, with Wu Hang, Between Past and Future: new Photography and Video from China (2004).