Franco Vimercati: The Photographer Who Shot the Same Subject for a Decade

A retrospective at Rome's Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, open until September 10, 2023, revisits the radical practice of Franco Vimercati (1940–2001). Curated by Susan Bright, 'Franco Vimercati. Il mondo in un granello di sabbia' traces the Milanese artist's evolution from painter to photographer. Vimercati began experimenting with photography in the early 1970s after meeting Ugo Mulas, who introduced him to Diane Arbus and Robert Frank. His first photographic work, 38 portraits of villagers in the Langhe, was exhibited at the Biblioteca Luigi Einaudi in Dogliani in 1973. By 1974 he had created 'Un minuto di fotografia'—13 shots of an alarm clock taken every 5 seconds. This led to a rigorous discipline: photographing the same object repeatedly in black and white. In 1983 he began a decade-long series focused on a single chipped terrine left by previous tenants. The 'zuppiera cycle' concluded in 1992. His work was championed by collector Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, curators Elio Grazioli and Simone Menegoi, and gallerists Monica de Cardenas and Raffaella Cortese, who opened her Milan gallery in 1995 with a solo show of his work.