Massimo Vitali

Italian photographer Massimo Vitali (born 1944) has always made his books as large as possible, to create ample space for the sweeping views of his photography—images that grow up to four meters wide as editioned prints. Yet even at such generous proportions, there are limits to the details we can perceive in the pages of his books. Much remains impossible to decipher: the figures in the background, the specificity of a gesture or gaze. Distant Close-Ups remedies this predicament, providing both new sight and insight into Vitali’s work.
Following Entering a New World: Photographs 2009–2018, this book comprises classic Vitali images made in 2019–23 of waterside recreation, alongside a series of people before Florence’s Duomo and swarms of concertgoers. The photographs are shown as full-page spreads, followed by close-ups of the images—unveiling as yet unseen details of the hundreds, sometimes thousands of figures Vitali captures in a single frame. We can witness the precise moment a diver’s hand breaks the water’s surface and the ambiguous, self-absorbed expression of a swimmer, floating at dusk, her eyes skyward, unaware of the camera.

This large-format volume, collecting images from 2009 to 2018, is the latest in Steidl’s series publishing the life’s work of Massimo Vitali. Following the first two volumes, published together as Landscape with Figures / Natural Habitats, 1994–2009 in 2011 (and now out of print), Entering a New World presents Vitali’s large-scale color images of humans interacting en masse—both consciously and unconsciously—with their environments.

Whether relaxing beachside, exploring the ruins of the Roman Forum or navigating a crowded shopping promenade, the scenes in these photographs are topographical celebrations and subtle critiques of our changing habits of leisure. The book furthermore traces an important shift in Vitali’s practice: his move from large-format film to medium-format digital.

Born in Como in 1944, Massimo Vitali studied photography at the London College of Printing. Beginning in the 1960s, Vitali worked as a photojournalist, collaborating with magazines and agencies throughout Europe before turning to cinematography for television and cinema in the early 1980s. He eventually returned to still photography as an artist, taking up large-format photography in 1993 and beginning his famous Beach Series in 1995. Steidl has published Vitali’s Landscape with Figures (2004) and Landscape with Figures / Natural Habitats, 1994–2009 (2011).

After nearly 30 years working in large-format photography, Massimo Vitali (born 1944), famed for his images of beaches and discos, brings together his 12 "best" photographs in a beautiful volume. Vitali began his career as a photojournalist in the 1960s, collaborating with magazines and agencies throughout Europe, before turning to cinematography for television and cinema in the early '80s. He eventually returned to still photography as an artist, taking up large-format photography in 1993 and beginning his famous Beach Series in 1995.

The selection of just 12 works gathered for this volume was made following many lengthy conversations with collaborators and curators who know his work deeply. These works are not necessarily his best-known pieces; rather each one speaks to a particular moment of his artistic research, like short stories of a long career.