The tennis court enters, literally, in the space of Camera, Italian Centre for Photography, in Turin, before, during, and after the Nitto ATP Finals, held last November, with a focus unusually devoted to the public.
An actual net is stretched in exhibition room #6 while, on the walls, the portraits of the viewers cheering their champions stand out. By making eye contact with the visitors, they break up the scenic illusion and establish a tight relationship between the photographic representation and the tangible actuality of the court, reconstructed inside Camera.
OPEN BY LOUIS LITTLE, NEW YORK,
USA, 2017
With his usual irony, British photographer Marin Pass has, since 2014, been capturing the emotions, awkwardness, fanatism, and foolishness of the Grand Slam tournament with hints of grotesque and caricatural traits of the crowds going crazy at watching their beloved athletes and their performances.
PARR IN TURIN
Among the most renowned photographers of Magnum Photos (he was President between 2013 and 2017), founder of Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol, which manages the enormous archive, Parr has become one of the mythical figures of contemporary photography. Since 2015, the Camera space in Turin has been an ideal venue for photography exhibitions under Walter Guadagnini’s direction.
Until 13 February 2022, Martin Parr. We ?Sports, will be on show (curated by Walter Guadagnini and Monica Poggi) with a selection of 150 shots that have become iconic and include tennis, horse riding, cricket, soccer.
The prestigious catalogue Match Point. Tennis by Martin Parr, published by Phaidon, displays 80 pictures taken during the famous tournaments, plus some previously unseen shots. The introduction is by Sabina Jaskot-Gill, curator at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
THE EXHIBITION
Starting with a series of black and white images dating back to the Thatcher’s era, portraying elegant viewers at the horse races in Ireland, the show ends with recent colour impressions taken at the seaside, devoted to the leisure of extravagant people.
Francesca Lavazza, Board Member of Lavazza Group, in supporting Camera since the beginning, points out, “I have appreciated Parr’s work since I started collaborating with him in 2008 in a project that recounted the Italian breakfast. His worldview is extremely effective. I loved his ironical and personal gaze at once and his being so sincere and immediate with his uncompromising, yet positive, realism.”
A special section is devoted to soccer playing with images inspired by Fever Pitch, a cult movie directed in 1997 by David Evans. The elation and unbridled joy of the supporters who are watching a match testify the physical and psychological involvement that results somehow overwhelming.
