Olivo Barbieri

Artist

  • Born in 1954, Olivo Barbieri lives and works in Modena, Italy. Barbieri is at the forefront of contemporary international filmmaking and photography. He has participated in four Venice Biennales (1993, 1995, 1997 and 2011), and his works have been exhibited at prestigious institutions internationally including: the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art; and the International Center of Photography, New York. He has also participated in the Prague Biennial (2009), the Seville Biennial (2006), and the Venice Biennial (2013), and his first retrospective was held at the Folkwang Museum in Essen in 1996. More

Overview

Ronchini Gallery, London, is proud to present an exhibition of works by artist Olivo Barbieri from 30 November 2012 to 10 January 2013. Barbieri will unveil his first series of aerial photographs of London, as part of the latest chapter in his site specific_ series. The Italian artist has become known for his iconic take on urban spaces, photographing cities from the vantage point of a helicopter.

In site specific_, Barbieri reinterprets urban spaces as we have never seen them before, distancing us from the human noise and hustle and bustle, and depicting them as miniature project renderings.  For Barbieri, it is the shape of the contemporary metropolis, or the urban identity, which interests him, rather than a literal transcription of a city.  “I began to use the helicopter to move away from the sound of the words, to see the city from a great distance, far away from the voices, as I want to understand the urban form,” explains Barbieri.