Mario Lasalandra

Biography

Born in 1933 in Este, on the southern limit of the Euganei hills, Mario Lasalandra inherits in the fifties the workshop of his maternal grandfather, Federico Tuzza, painter and photographer. Soon he begins to alternate this activity with an original research: photographing in desolate locations clown like characters on which the influence of the early films of Fellini (La Strada, Le Notti di Cabiria) is very evident. Shortly the scenes become more complex, and Lasalandra begins to build fantastic stories which, although devoid of dramatic coherence, are full of evocations and references to figures of the modern mythography Thus his most famous series, Judgement, 1967. Scarecrows, 1968. Filodrammatici, 1968. Story of a Drama, 1970, all populated by a charming host of angels, virgins, prophets, masks, actors, ghosts.
Staggering figures, showing, through their precarious balance, the instability of an era when photography in Italy was crossed by a deep and irreparable crisis. But these figures, at the same time, have a strong relationship with history - from daguerreotypes to August Sander, from David Bailey to Diane Arbus - in a extraordinarily original way. Offering a constant, and still endless, variety of types and situations. Figures, which make Mario Lasalandra one of the most innovative and brilliant authors in contemporary photography.

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