Gabriele Basilico's Early Travel Photography at Photo & Contemporary in Turin

A new exhibition at Photo & Contemporary in Turin traces Gabriele Basilico's formative years as a photography student, before he became known for his iconic urban landscapes. The show draws on three adventurous road trips taken between 1969 and 1971 with his partner Giovanna Calvenzi and friends, traveling across Europe and the Middle East in a Fiat 124 with a two-person tent, a duvet mattress, and several Nikon F cameras. In Glasgow in 1969, Basilico shot a single roll of film capturing children playing in a peripheral neighborhood slated for demolition—including a girl with a wooden leg—which he later credited as the moment he realized he would photograph for life. One image of a viaduct became the poster for his first exhibition. The second trip, from Yugoslavia to Iran, took him to Persepolis, where he first practiced a fixed, monumental gaze on architecture as theater. In Qom, local residents surrounded his lens, leading to expulsion by police. The third journey to Morocco in 1971 marked a transition from landscape and figure to pure architecture; though the intended book never materialized, the photographs prefigure his later series 'Dancing in Emilia' (1978). Calvenzi notes that Basilico always hoped to publish in architecture magazines like Domus or Abitare. The exhibition also features vintage prints from Iran (1970) and Morocco, now published by Humboldt Books.