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Napoli Senza Titolo

May 13 – June 17, 2011

Untitled, Luciano Romano, digital image, 2008

The Paul Paletti Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Napoli Senza Titolo (Naples Untitled), an Italian photography exhibit co-sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute of Louisville and the Kentuckiana Cancer Research Foundation. The exhibit opens on Friday, May 13 and will continue through June 17, 2011.

Curated by Fabio Donato, Maria Frederica Palesinte and Marina Vergiani, Napoli Senza Titolo explores the ways in which public spaces in Naples have been used by Neapolitans during the past 40 years. Naples is a city of extremes, famous for its beauty and creative spirit, but also associated with environmental degradation and corruption. In the public’s mind, clichés and stereotypes on both ends of this spectrum prevail over a more tempered, multifaceted reality. In fact, the curators decided to call the exhibit Naples Untitled in order to encourage viewers to look at their city in a fresh way, uninfluenced by predetermined points of view or overt direction from the organizers. The photographs are untitled as well; this leaves viewers free to create their own personal narrative of Naples, narratives that are much more likely to incorporate many aspects of the city’s character by being formed through diverse images.

Inaugurated in Naples at the Palazzo delle Arti di Napoli in February of 2009, Napoli Senza Titolo is comprised of 38 black and white photographs from 20 of Italy’s most accomplished photographers, including Mimmo Iodice. It travelled to the Italian Cultural Institute in Chicago for an opening in November of the same year where it was meant to provide a preview of the International Forum of Cultures, an important UNESCO initiative designed to foster intercultural dialogue and debate, which will be hosted by Naples in 2013. The project was made possible by the Naples Center of the Documentation of the Arts, which granted curators access to its art archives, and the Center for Contemporary Arts PAN (Palazzo delle Arti Napoli).