Gabriele Basilico

This beautiful photobook collects 131 photographs produced by Italian photographer Gabriele Basilico (1944–2013) over the course of his career, from the late 1980s to the 2000s—most previously unpublished. It focuses on Basilico’s depictions of architectural space.

This book gathers the most important series by Italian photographer Gabriele Basilico (1944-2013), one of the best-known urban photographers in the world. Published in conjunction with a retrospective in Rome, this monograph presents contributions by Roberta Valtorta, Marc Augé, Luca Doninelli, Giovanna Calvenzi and Filippo Maggia.

Italian photographer Gabriele Basilico (1944–2013) is best known for his photographs of industrial and postindustrial sites. This volume focuses on contemporary ruins and the oscillation between urban space and natural space in cities.

With over 150 photographs, this publication covers the main themes in the body of work of Gabriele Basilico (Milan, 1944–2013), in particular his relationship with cities and urban landscapes. Beginning with the Milano: Ritratti di fabbriche cycle from the late 1970s, this book follows the evolution of Basilico’s artistic language from his legendary pictures taken in France and in major ports across Europe in the 1980s to the 1991 series devoted to Beirut, which had just left behind its long civil war, up to his final work on the renewal of the Porta Nuova district in Milan. The main core of works in this publication consists of the fifty portraits of cities which the artist took over the course of his career: Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Moscow, San Francisco, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, and Shanghai intermingle and dialogue through Basilico’s impassioned and contemplative gaze. He was able to interpret the passage of time, transformations in architecture, and unexpected analogies in an endless journey across the bodies of cities.

Former director of the Galleria Civica in Modena, Walter Guadagnini is a curator and professor of History of Contemporary Art at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna. Since 1985, Giovanna Calvenzi has worked as a photo-editor and also collaborates with various Italian magazines. In 1998, she was artistic director of Rencontres de la Photographie at Arles, and in 2014 she was artistic representative of the Mois de la Photo in Paris.

This large format book explores, in more than 100 black & white images, the “phenomenon” called Silicon Valley. Gabriele Basilico’s background in both photography and architecture qualify him particularly for this look at both the landscape and buildings of this region. Published on the occasion of the Gabriele Basilico exhibition at MoMA San Francisco (January 2008), this catalogue also includes 70 never-before-published photographs of San Francisco. An introductory essay by Sandra Philips explores his work.

Gabriele Basilico, born in Milan in 1944, first studied architecture, a discipline reflected in his photography. His landscapes avoid human presence and explore the complex interrelationships between built environments and natural ones. Filippo Maggia lives and works between Milan and Turin and collaborates with art journals both in Italy and abroad. He has curated more than 50 group and solo exhibitions and teaches Contemporary History of Photography and Design at the European Institute of Design in Turin. Since 2006 he has been Photography Editor at Skira. In 2007 he received a visiting fellowship from the Royal College of Art in London.