Carlo Garzia's Retrospective Explores Puglia's Contradictions at Castello Carlo V

A major retrospective of Carlo Garzia's five-decade photographic career, titled 'Ce qu’il reste. Fotografie dal 1975 ad oggi,' is on view at Castello Carlo V in Lecce. Curated by Bitume Photofest and Positivo Diretto, the exhibition inaugurates the Bitume Copy/Past program, a project by Liberrima for Puglia Luoghi della Bellezza. It features 180 photographs selected by Andrea Laudisa from Garzia's extensive archive, organized thematically rather than chronologically. The title, a line from a poem by Wislawa Szymborska, reflects a cyclical completion. A key section, 'Sudd,' focuses on the contradictions of Puglian popular culture through the sacred/profane dichotomy, representing Garzia's early work from the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. Influenced by Mario Cresci's socio-anthropological approach and Diane Arbus's 'cruel side,' Garzia moved away from traditional rural reportage. Later, Luigi Ghirri involved him in the 1984 exhibition 'Viaggio in Italia,' shifting Garzia's focus from human figures to landscape. The 'Immagini di città' section, titled after Walter Benjamin's book, presents urban scenes from Italian, US, and European cities, including Paris, captured with symmetry and Freud's 'unheimliche' (uncanny) aesthetic. Garzia, born in Bari in 1944, is a former French literature professor and founder of the Spazio Immagine gallery in 1980.