Biography
Massimo Vitali (b. in Como, Italy, 1944) is an Italian photographer that lives and works in Lucca, Italy and Berlin, Germany.
After studying photography at the London College of Printing, worked as a photojournalist, collaborating with many magazines and agencies in Italy and Europe. At the beginning of the Eighties, a growing mistrust in the belief that photography had an absolute capacity to reproduce the subtleties of reality led to a change in his career path.
His series of Italian beach panoramas began in the light of drastic political changes in Italy. Massimo started to observe his fellow countrymen very carefully. He depicted a “sanitized, complacent view of Italian normalities”, at the same time revealing “the inner conditions and disturbances of normality: its cosmetic fakery, sexual innuendo, commodified leisure, deluded sense of affluence, and rigid conformism”.
Exhibitions
2021 Electronic: from Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers, Design Museum, London, UK
Civilization: the way we live now, Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Mediterranée (Mucem), Marseille, France
2020 Human Constellations, Museo Ettore Fico, Turin, Italy New Normal, La Fab, Paris, France
Shared Spaces; A New Era, the University galleries at Florida Atlantic University, Florida, USA
Civilization: the way we live now, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, New Zealand
2019 Massimo Vitali: Short Stories, Mazzoleni, London, UK
Electro. From Kraftwerk to Laurent Garnier, Philarmonie de Paris, Paris, France
2018 Coastal Colonies, Spiral, Tokyo
2017 Disturbed Coastal System , Benrubi Gallery, New York, USA
arte! – Uno spettacolo italiano, NEXT DOOR, The Gallery, Antwerp, The Netherlands
Vacances, Hotel Fontfreyde – centre photographique, Clermont-Ferrand, France
From the Cavern to the Moon, Centro Pecci, Prato, Italy
Domenica, Marcello Farabegoli Projects @ Italian Embassy, Metternich Palace, Vienna, Austria
2016 Ronchini Gallery, London, UK
Landscape with figures , Guidi & Schoen, Genova, Italy
Crown Gallery, Knokke-Zoute, Belgium
Arno Immaginario Collettivo, Le Murate, Florence, Italy
Panorama, Musée d’Art de la Province d’Hainaut, Charleroi, Belgium
Extraordinary Visions. L’Italia ci Guarda, MAXXI Museum, Rome, Italy
