Don McCullin's largest Italian retrospective opens at Palazzo delle Esposizioni

Over 250 photographs by war photographer Don McCullin (London, 1935) are on display at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome in the largest Italian retrospective dedicated to him, curated by Simon Baker. The exhibition, titled 'Don McCullin a Roma,' follows his 2019 Tate Britain retrospective and runs alongside a concurrent show for Ukrainian artist Boris Mikhailov (Kharkiv, 1938). Both are open until January 28, 2024. The McCullin show is divided into six sections blending documentary and intimate, narrative and emotional approaches, prioritizing testimony over aesthetic purity. It begins with his early 1950s–60s street photography in Finsbury Park, London, then covers the Berlin Wall construction, conflicts in Cyprus, Congo, Vietnam, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Iraq (2003), and Syria. Each room pairs photos with McCullin's own short texts. After 1979, he abandoned war photography for landscapes and still lifes, capturing the somber skies and marshes of Somerset. In the early 2000s, he launched a project on Roman Empire ruins, visiting Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Italy, and the USA, including sites like Volubilis, Baalbek, and Palmyra, continuing through the pandemic.