Finally a book on Venice without gondolette, silvery reflections, romantic glimpses of canals and bridges and everything else that provides the perfect tourist measure for selling a city known as “the most beautiful in the world.” D’Agostin’s eye is certainly more sensitive than the emulsion or apparatus of his camera, and this is a crucial talent in the field of photography – Italo Zannier

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Photo Gallery

The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia
Silvana Editoriale, printed in Italy, Amilcare Pizzi
Hardcover, 112 pages, 23.8 x 33 cm.
Text in English, Italian, French and Japanese.

To purchase a copy please email rena@renatodagostin.com

“Venetian Heritage is very proud to be associated with Renato D’Agostin on this project. His photographs of Venice show the city in a totally new light. Our hope is that through this body of work, the beauty of the city will continue to inspire generations to come.” – Pierre Durand, President Venetian Heritage

The photography book The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia will be released worldwide March 2012 with preface by Renata Codello, Superintendent for the Cultural Heritage and Landscape of Venice and the Lagoon, and texts by curator and photo historian, Italo Zannier, and curator, Chiara Casarin.

Renato D’Agostin’s work explores possibilities of a different sort: it unveils the best known architectural sites of Venice, such as St Mark’s Square, by making them the object of a striking primary analysis, whereby the outlines of the architectural volumes fade away without losing their weight; space is made the object of endless interpretations, yet all reflecting the author’s vision; the details of the buildings necessarily point to the whole structures; the lagoon horizon is traced by the ideal profiles of the islands and by the dots of the mooring posts, without being conditioned by them. This is not simply a book of photographs, then, but a collection of possible “visions” of the city. – Renata Codello, Superintendent for the Cultural Heritage and Landscape of Venice and the Lagoon.

Venetian Heritage will offer 200 advance publication copies of The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia ($60). Limited Edition copies including an 8×10 inch silver gelatin print will also be available ($500). The proceeds from this exhibition will be used to benefit the restoration projects of Venetian Heritage Inc.

The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia is Underwritten by Venetian Heritage Inc., under the Patronage of Provincia di Venezia and Cittá di San Doná di Piave, in collaboration with MC2 Gallery Milan, Galerie Photo 4 Paris, Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Monastier e del Sile, with technical support from Sprint Systems of Photography.

Upcoming exhibitions of The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia: Paris, France, November 3, 2011 at the Galerie Photo 4; Milan, Italy, January 2012 at MC2 Gallery; Madrid, Spain, February 2012 at Galeria Rita Castellote; Singapore, April 2012 at Gallery 2902; Venice, Italy, September 2012 at Palazzo Ducale.

Review copies, interview requests, high-resolution images, and excerpts available upon request. For all media inquiries contact Kristina Ratliff at +1 (646) 714-2520 or via email at kristina@statepr.com

www.venetianheritage.org

www.sprintsystems.com

Limited Edition The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia

Finally a book on Venice without gondolette, silvery reflections, romantic glimpses of canals and bridges and everything else that provides the perfect tourist measure for selling a city known as “the most beautiful in the world.” D’Agostin’s eye is certainly more sensitive than the emulsion or apparatus of his camera, and this is a crucial talent in the field of photography – Italo Zannier

“Venetian Heritage is very proud to be associated with Renato D’Agostin on this project. His photographs of Venice show the city in a totally new light. Our hope is that through this body of work, the beauty of the city will continue to inspire generations to come.” – Pierre Durand, President Venetian Heritage

The photography book The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia will be released worldwide March 2012 with preface by Renata Codello, Superintendent for the Cultural Heritage and Landscape of Venice and the Lagoon, and texts by curator and photo historian, Italo Zannier, and curator, Chiara Casarin.

Renato D’Agostin’s work explores possibilities of a different sort: it unveils the best known architectural sites of Venice, such as St Mark’s Square, by making them the object of a striking primary analysis, whereby the outlines of the architectural volumes fade away without losing their weight; space is made the object of endless interpretations, yet all reflecting the author’s vision; the details of the buildings necessarily point to the whole structures; the lagoon horizon is traced by the ideal profiles of the islands and by the dots of the mooring posts, without being conditioned by them. This is not simply a book of photographs, then, but a collection of possible “visions” of the city. – Renata Codello, Superintendent for the Cultural Heritage and Landscape of Venice and the Lagoon.

Venetian Heritage will offer 200 advance publication copies of The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia ($60). Limited Edition copies including an 8×10 inch silver gelatin print will also be available ($500). The proceeds from this exhibition will be used to benefit the restoration projects of Venetian Heritage Inc.

To reserve a copy please email venicebook@statepr.com or call +1 (646) 714-2520.

The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia is Underwritten by Venetian Heritage Inc., under the Patronage of Provincia di Venezia and Cittá di San Doná di Piave, in collaboration with MC2 Gallery Milan, Galerie Photo 4 Paris, Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Monastier e del Sile, with technical support from Sprint Systems of Photography.

The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia is published by Silvana Editoriale, printed in Italy, Amilcare Pizzi. Hardcover, 112 pages, 23.8 x 33 cm. Text in English, Italian, French and Japanese.

Upcoming exhibitions of The Beautiful Cliché – Venezia: Paris, France, November 3, 2011 at the Galerie Photo 4; Milan, Italy, January 2012 at MC2 Gallery; Madrid, Spain, February 2012 at Galeria Rita Castellote; Singapore, April 2012 at Gallery 2902; Venice, Italy, September 2012 at Palazzo Ducale.

Review copies, interview requests, high-resolution images, and excerpts available upon request. For all media inquiries contact Kristina Ratliff at +1 (646) 714-2520 or via email at kristina@statepr.com.

During New York Fashion Week S/S 2012 Brooklyn based designer Suzanne Rae presented her upcoming spring collection. Some of the photographs from Tokyo Untitled were used by Suzanne Rae to create unique fabrics for several of the collection pieces.

“The inspiration for Suzannne Rae spring/summer 2012 is nostalgia for a simpler time amidst the constant search of identity in this rapidly changing world. Turning to 19th century Japan and collaborating with photographer Renato D’Agostin and his body of work Tokyo Untitled, the collection reflects a modest era with a zen-like quality that is at the same time optimistic for a better tomorrow.”

www.suzannerae.com

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* images provided by wireimage.com

The acclaimed beauty of Venice is perhaps among the best known and most distinguishing features of the city.
“Postcard” shots of it are just as common: stereotypical pictures reproducing unique and incomparable landmarks that are promoted through the endless repetition of the same images.
It would seem, therefore, that little or nothing remains to be discovered in the lagoon city, which is so strongly conditioned by its own legend.
Renato D’Agostin’s work explores possibilities of a different sort: it unveils the best known architectural sites of Venice, such as St Mark’s Square, by making them the object of a striking primary analysis, whereby the outlines of the architectural volumes fade away without losing their weight; space is made the object of endless interpretations, yet all reflecting the author’s vision; the details of the buildings necessarily point to the whole structures; the lagoon horizon is traced by the ideal profiles of the islands and by the dots of the mooring posts, without being conditioned by them.
…
What transpires is a drive towards the future that transcends the means of photography, aspiring to discover horizons and paths that are still concealed. This approach fully brings out the liveliness of places, their powerful capacity of being perceived by millions of visitors – regardless of the extent to which they are understood – in always different and constantly renewed ways.

From the preface by Renata Codello, Superintendent for the Cultural Heritage and Landscape of Venice and the Lagoon.

In TokyoUntitled D’Agostin isolates himself in the geometries of the Japanese city. He narrates his journey through his experience of the street, describing with the language of abstract images, charged of deep blacks and sharp edges. Dislocating subjects from their realities, D’Agostin depicts his perception of the space around him, the relationship between the city’s architecture and its people, and their interferences. This is emphasized in Tokyo, according to D’Agostin, where he has no reference or connection with the external world, and his sense of disconnection brings him to a discovery of the unseen.

“Tokyo Untitled” photographs bring me back to the destroyed Tokyo as it appeared right after the war ended. It may be totally impossible for young Renato to imagine that his “Tokyo Untitled” reminds me of such tragic images as Tokyo’s air raid attack which happened 64 years ago.
— Eikoh Hosoe.

These images are the thinnest possible slices of inconceivable urban density. Slices so thin that they must be measured in fractions of light, tiny microscopic moments of DNA in time taken from the huge archeology of a true metropolis.
— Ralph Gibson.

Afterwords: Eikoh Hosoe, Ralph Gibson
Publisher: MC2 Gallery Edizioni, Milan,
Printed in Italy, Amilcare Pizzi
Publication Date: November 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-88-904380-0-4
Design: Heartfelt Milan
Printrun: 2000
Hardcover, 88 pages, 23.8 x 33 cm
Available In English, Japanese, Italian, and French
Price: 80 US$

Limited Edition Tokyo Untitled book with 8×10 in. Silver Gelatin Print in slipcase box.
5 subjects available. Each subject in edition of 5.
Each print signed, numbered and dated in pencil on the recto.

For any additional info, price and availability please contact rena@renatodagostin.com

From the preface by Renata Codello

The very exaltation and praise of its beauty is perhaps one of the most universally recognized traits of the city of Venice. Equally popular are those “postcard” snapshots–stereotyped images that seek to reproduce grand sites of extraordinary and inimitable singularity, which are then disseminated by way of the very same endlessly repeated images. It would seem, therefore, that little or nothing should or could possibly be discovered about the lagoon city so strongly influenced by its own myth. Renato D’Agostin’s work revolves around other possibilities: he unveils the best-known architectural spaces, such as Piazza San Marco, subjecting them to a surprising elemental analysis in which the contours of the structural masses soften without losing their weight…

Venezia is a limited edition portfolio of 7 silver-gelatin photographs printed by
the artist in an edition of 10 with 2 artist proofs.

These photographs have been made with a Leica M7 and Nikon F100 using Tri-X developed in Rodinal. These prints have been made by the artist on Ilford Multi-Grade, developed, fixed and processed to the highest archival standards.

Print size : 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm)
Mat size : 16 x 20 in. (40 x 50 cm)
Box size : 17.5 x 21.5 in. (44.45 x 54.61 cm)
Edition of 10 + 2 A/P
Each print stamped, numbered, signed and dated on recto

For any additional info, price and availability please contact rena@renatodagostin.com

The city as a place in which we live, work and love looses its physical dimension and becomes a place of pure emotion. Its buildings and streets become paths of reason and emotion similar and/or different wherever we happen to be. The images in the photograph are only signs, the warmth of emotions left on the ground or, in the words of James Hillman, the soul of places. In fact, a careful reader will immediately realise that the city, the places shot by the photographer, belong to completely different yet identical realities, because they are places that shimmer with feeling.

In his photographs, Renato portrays a place in which the mind searches for what we normally call the scraps of the soul and immediately transfers them into an oneiric dimension. The photographer participates and is intimately involved in the metahistorical development of the story: a series of images and tales that are not real but images of what we have called a parallel reality. This reality escapes our daily considerations to become the ecstatic revelation that some philosophers would call the vision of our third eye.

Preface: Ralph Gibson
Text: Renato Miracco
Publisher: Zeropuntozerozero, 2007. Printed in Italy
Design: Heartfelt Milan
Printrun: 1000
Hardcover, 84 pages, 16,5 x 23,5 cm
ISBN 9788890280801
Available in English, Italian
Price: 35US$
Amazon.com

In 2007, I turned my attention to Japanese photography, which inspired me to explore what my point of view could be in a city so far from the world that had always surrounded me, but so close to the photographic imagery towards which I was addressing my attention. Longing to break the unconscious, immediate and easy processes of the known and the predictable, I traveled to Tokyo for the first time. I was immediately struck by a sense of disorientation and an inability to quickly locate my own position within the geography of the city. My lack of precise references to the external world created in me feelings of isolation and detachment from my previously known realities. I was bewitched by the essential and monochromatic geometric forms, so delicate and precise, of the experience of street life, where these forms cause sounds to fall into a deep silence, muffling the interaction between architecture and human figures. I was impelled toward a quest for the unseen, for details and hidden elements. My perception of this outside world lost all sense of time for me, revealing an essence described by a language of the surreal and the abstract. I returned to Tokyo in 2008 and 2009 to repeat the experience. Guided by the same quest, but with a greater awareness of the cultural separation, I let isolation become introspection. I sought to recreate this world that belonged to me, as it is reflected by the city’s reality, while appropriating images and moments that delineate the “me” within its boundaries. It has become my Tokyo. Tokyo Untitled represents a visual record of my journey to the “capital of the East” and its invisible elements diluted in visible everyday life.

Lucia Servadio Bedarida was born into a Jewish family on July 17 1900 in Ancona. In 1922 she graduates in Surgery and Obstetrics at the University of Rome becoming the youngest woman doctor in Italy. After marrying Doctor Nino Vittorio Bedarida in 1923, she works with him side by side at the hospital, first in Turin and then in Vasto. In 1939 she is forced to flee Italy because of the promulgation of the antisemitic racial laws, which were to be applied to her whole family. «Be aware that you are being followed and they want to get you » people would say to us. After numerous and unsuccessful attempts to go abroad, she moves to Tangier, an international area in Morocco that harbours the Jews who flee Europe and allows them to practise their profession. In Tangier, Lucia works as a doctor for more than forty years and assists hundreds of women in giving birth to their babies. “Women come to me on the back of a mule” says Lucia who, being a woman doctor, enjoys the approval of the Moroccan mentality in practising her profession. In Morocco Lucia spends most of her life. The break with Italy is drastic, communication is impossible. After a few years, heartbreaking news arrives: her mother and grandmother were deported and killed at Auschwitz. Even through these terrible moments, Lucia never loses her faith and keeps up with her mission as a doctor. I must continue to work as a doctor. Too many people still need me here Only at 81 does she resolve to hang up her coat for good and reunite with her daughters, who had been sent to the States at a young age to continue their studies and start a career. She moves to Cornwall on Hudson, a small village one hour from New York City. Olivia Fincato and Renato D’Agostin meet up with her in her house on the Hudson river banks in March 2006. Lucia welcomes them with enthusiasm and forges with them a bond of deep trust right away. A month after the meeting Lucia Servadio Bedarida dies. «Experiencing Lucia was an honor, even if for just one day. Lucia leaves a mark on our lives and teaches us that, after all, life can be beautiful and full of surprises at any age, even at one-hundred-and-six».