Artists’ residence Villa Medici presents its new photography exhibition ‘Chromotherapia’. Located within the sixteenth century Italian villa, just outside of Rome’s city centre, the exhibition explores how we view colour as a way of therapy.
‘Chromotherapia' at Villa Medici
Maurizio Cattelan & Pierpaolo Ferrari
Villa Medici is known for hosting a wide range of artistic programs from exhibitions to festivals. Now, the villa has been adorned in the bright colours of twentieth century photography which includes playful imagery highlighted in bold hues from neon yellows to electric blues, deep oranges and vibrant reds.
Walter Chandoha, New Jersey archive, 1962
Visitors are encouraged to explore the exhibition through the lens of 19 artists, including work from Maurizio Cattelan & Pierpaolo Ferrari, the duo behind Toiletpaper,prolific photographer Walter Chandoha, and American artist, director and screenwriter Alex Prager, to name a few. The showcase, which is divided into seven chapters (each chapter displaying genres of varying from food images in'Foodorama' to quirky animals in 'Raining Cats and Dogs' ), dives into the creators’ colourfully saturated world, which is quite often not taken very seriously.
From Common Sense Ramsgate, England, 1996
In 1907, the first industrial colour photograph was created by the Lumière brothers. This welcomed a new century of experimentation capturing ordinary landscapes to more political imagery swiftly becoming a central narrative element and offering a new chromatic vision of the world.
Williams Wegman, Ski Patrol, 2017
What we can see from ‘Chromotherapia’ is the fun and free-spirited nature the photographers have applied by truly exploring the photographic medium in all its potential. The array of imagery toys with pop art, surrealism, bling, kitsch, and the baroque. This diverse view all has one common denominator, the desire to try and see life and emotions differently that sometimes only colour can convey.
The exhibition is accompanied by a photographic book Chromotherapia, Feel-Good Color Photography edited by Damiani Books and the Villa Medici.
‘Chromotherapia’ at Villa Medici in Rome is on display until 9 June 2025 villamedici.it
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