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Amc2 Journal Issue 9 — Amore e Piombo:
The Photography of Extremes in 1970s Italy edited and with an essay by Roger Hargreaves& Federica Chiocchetti. AMC Books, 2014.  |
This week's Book of the Week pick comes from photographer Andrea Botto who has selected Amc2 Journal Issue 9 — Amore e Piombo: The Photography of Extremes in 1970s Italy edited and with an essay by Roger Hargreaves & Federica Chiocchetti from AMC Books.
"Amore e Piombo (Love and Lead): The Photography of Extremes in 1970s Italy is the new book published by Archive of Modern Conflict and masterfully edited by Federica Chiocchetti and Roger Hargreaves. Through the archive pictures of the Rome-based agency Editorial Team Service, the curators reenact the events that took place in Italy in the so-called 'Years of Lead.' The 'Italian Hot Autumn,' a number of struggles that permanently had changed the social and political framework of the country that was followed by the 'strategy of tension,' the use of domestic terrorism on a longstanding basis to maintain the political status quo. The contours of these events are still obscure; in a perfect plot with subversive groups, deviated secret services, masonry, NATO and CIA. If we add to this that Italy had the largest Communist Party outside the Soviet Union, we can also get an idea of the resulting international tensions between USA and USSR, which saw Europe, and in particular Italy, as part of a larger geopolitical chessboard.
It is said that the former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was quoted as saying that, although he was able to decipher the obscure maneuvers of the Kremlin, he found it impossible to understand the logic of Italian politics. And who can blame him?
The book Amore e Piombo is an explosive mixture of crime, politics, gossip and lifestyle, which makes for powerful Italian imaginary able to touch the sensibilities even of the people who didn't live during those events. My generation is the daughter of that period and what has happened and continues to happen in our country today comes in large part from there and from open questions on the past; it's a very hard thing to be solved and metabolized.
Photography can't prove anything; it is not proof even though it is still a document. At its best, it can only show what is in the frame. However, the pictures can activate an imagination, like a switch that turns on something already latent in our heads, asking questions and increasing our doubts. And this book carries out the work very well.
Like the curators say: 'Far from offering answers or uncovering definitive truths, the photographs we have collated for Amore e Piombo (Love and Lead) reveal only tantalising fragments of admissible evidence, their credibility undermined by their role as unwitting accomplices in the strategic fomentation of tension. All the while, the true puppet-masters and string-pullers remain just out of frame.'"—Andrea Botto
Purchase Book
Photography can't prove anything; it is not proof even though it is still a document. At its best, it can only show what is in the frame. However, the pictures can activate an imagination, like a switch that turns on something already latent in our heads, asking questions and increasing our doubts. And this book carries out the work very well.
Like the curators say: 'Far from offering answers or uncovering definitive truths, the photographs we have collated for Amore e Piombo (Love and Lead) reveal only tantalising fragments of admissible evidence, their credibility undermined by their role as unwitting accomplices in the strategic fomentation of tension. All the while, the true puppet-masters and string-pullers remain just out of frame.'"—Andrea Botto
Purchase Book
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Amc2 Journal Issue 9 — Amore e Piombo: The Photography of Extremes in 1970s Italy edited and with an essay by Roger Hargreaves& Federica Chiocchetti. AMC Books, 2014.
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| Amc2 Journal Issue 9 — Amore e Piombo: The Photography of Extremes in 1970s Italy edited and with an essay by Roger Hargreaves& Federica Chiocchetti. AMC Books, 2014. |
Andrea Botto (b. 1973) is an italian photographer and lecturer. He uses photography as a means of dissecting the world in order to expose its stratifications, focusing his research on the "aesthetics of destruction." His work has been exhibited and awarded internationally and his pictures are to be found in private and public collections. He was the artistic director of the Rapallo Contemporary Photography “Artist in residence” program and he is one of the founding members of the artistic collective Fotoromanzo Italiano.
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