Luigi Spina's Black-and-White Photographs of Ancient Roman Sculptures at Centrale Montemartini

Luigi Spina spent months between late 2018 and January 2019 photographing the faces of ancient Roman statues and busts at the Centrale Montemartini in Rome. His sixty black-and-white images, taken with a view camera and hand-printed, offer a new, detailed perspective on these ancient faces—men, women, elders, children, both commoners and notable figures—capturing expressions, glances, wrinkles, and roundness so vividly that the marble originals become hard to recognize. The exhibition juxtaposes works such as Faustina Maior (wife of Antoninus Pius) and the future emperor Tiberius alongside a young girl with a round face and melancholy gaze, an anonymous mature man with a penetrating eye, the elderly Togato Barberini, and the beautiful young Apollo Omphalos. Spina's work highlights the humanity of these ancient faces, many of which bear traits typical of contemporary Romans, as if they could be encountered at the post office or stadium.