Ferdinando Scianna's Ghetto di Venezia Exhibition at Casa dei Tre Oci

Ferdinando Scianna (Bagheria, 1943) presents over fifty unpublished photographs in the exhibition 'Il Ghetto di Venezia 500 anni dopo' at Casa dei Tre Oci, Venice, until January 8, 2017. Commissioned by the Fondazione di Venezia for the 500th anniversary of the Ghetto's establishment, the project captures architecture, faces, and atmospheres in black and white. Scianna, the first Italian member of Magnum Photos, was invited by Henri Cartier-Bresson to apply. He describes Venice as a 'visual blackmail trap' due to its overwhelming beauty and the clichés produced by countless painters and photographers. He focused solely on the Ghetto, a unique space that is both part of Venice and something else. Scianna considers photography closer to literature than painting, and sees writing and photographing as two sides of the same need. He has never believed in specialisms, viewing photography as a craft and a way of looking at the world. Technically a minimalist, he made his first book at age 21 with a single reflex camera and one lens. He believes photography no longer holds the cultural centrality it had for nearly two centuries, noting that while more photographs are taken today than ever, the purpose behind them is less understood. The exhibition is curated by Denis Curti.