Few days are left to visit the exhibition Roman-Photo at MUCEM, Marseille, which will run until next Monday, April 23rd. We (Valentina and I) visited it last week and are enthusiastic about it. The exhibition is a large retrospective on the photo novel. Starting from the origin of the medium, the first half delineates its core features and its evolution in time, showcasing a great variety of well-known titles next to lesser-known ones, photo novels with celebrities, short films and movie clips, and examples of photo novels from all around the world. The second half of the exhibition is dedicated to appropriations and subversions. Set aside the sentimental theme, here we witness a photo novel that is satirical, humorous, pornographic, political, artistic…
We also had the chance to talk with one of the curators, Marie-Charlotte Calafat, and a transcription of the interview will soon appear on the website.
If you don’t have time to visit the exhibition before its end, you can start planning a vacation to Italy instead: from April 20th until July 19th you will be able to visit the exhibition Fotoromanzo e poi… at Spazio Gerra, Reggio Emilia. This expo displays material from the Archive Cesare Zavattini (one of the most prolific directors of photo novels in Italy in the 60s and a key figure for Italian Neorealism), the Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori Foundation (Mondadori was one of the first publishing companies to produce photo novels), and the Archive Federico Vender (a professional photographer who also worked for photo novels, subject of last year’s exhibition in Trento). Moreover, for this exhibition a new photo novel has been created re-adapting one of Zavattini’s stories, and it will be released in episodes as an Instagram story – then projected in the exhibition space – starting from April 20th. Certainly an event not to be missed!
