Sunday, June 15, 2014

When I am not working



Between work and the weather I have not been able to get out and about much lately.

Right on the last day I grabbed some time to visit the  “Fotografia Europea”  photographic festival located in various locations here in Reggio Emilia. On a hot humid day it was a bit of a hard slog to get round all the venues.


Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia

Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia

Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia

Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia

Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia

Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia

The highlight of the festival for me was the Herbert List exhibition that put the rest of the shows in the shade. Seeing the actual photographs was absolutely stunning.

 The huge Ghirri exhibition made me realise that I like this photographers work in small doses. I saw a lot of stuff in this  retrospective that risks falling into the boring photographs category. However I like the wittiness present in much of his work that his imitators always lack.

The main part of the Sara Moon show was interesting but the second part in the city museum with photographs taken in Reggio, commissioned especially for this festival was very poor , relying on a lens permanently out of focus on one side to take some rather banal snapshots.
At Galleria Parmiggiani I saw some pure Psueds corner stuff downstairs. The other two shows were quite interesting.  At the old Synagogue I liked the Camoresi show taken in a disused island penal colony.

The Magnum exhibition with Martin Parr was rather small and not particularly interesting. Parr has done much better things.


Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia

Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia

Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia

Herbert List, Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia
What was most interesting was that I got to see some places in Reggio that I had never seen inside before.



Sunday I  visited  “Palazzo del Mosto”  in the centre  of Reggio Emilia that was open this weekend.  This Renaissance palace has just been restored and choosing the right time of day I managed to photograph  undisturbed the splendid seventeenth century staircase, the lovely wooden ceilings and what remains of the frescos. I cannot find out much about the origins of this building that has been much altered down the centuries.


Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia

Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia


Two  weeks ago I finally got around to climbing Monte Penna, a secondary mountain behind the “Crinale”  in the Province of Reggio.  Starting from Costabuona  the path follows a cart track almost right up to the main mountain.  It is a long boring uphill trek with a steep climb right at the end to arrive on top of the mountain. The view from the top is quite something .   A local told me whilst I was on my way up that I would be able see the gun emplacements dug by the Partisans and the SAS troops dropped in to help them during the last war right on top of the mountain.  

Monte Penna, RE

Monte Penna, RE

Monte Penna, RE

Monte Penna, RE

Monte Penna, RE

Monte Penna, RE

Gun emplacements, Monte Penna, RE

Monte Penna, RE

Monte Penna, RE

Monte Penna, RE
I still had some time to spare and so I decided to explore Costabuona.  I found some nice architectural details around the village. I got talking with one of the inhabitants, who told me that the population of 600 in 1960 had now fallen to 50, with most of the houses being second homes.  But he also told me that some families had as many as 17 children.

Costabuona,RE

Costabuona,RE


The week before that I visited  Lago Fontanaluccia  between Reggio Emilia and Modena before exploring the Dolo Valley as far as Rovolo.

The dam that is responsible for the artificial lake is a splendid piece of engineering  considering that it was built in the 1920’s. The load bearing structure is a series of vertical arches in brick that save on materials. Much  more cleaver than the modern “lets cast a huge block of concrerte”

Lago Fontanaluccia, RE

Lago Fontanaluccia, RE

Lago Fontanaluccia, RE
The little village of Rovolo had some nice spontaneous architecture.

Rovolo,MO

Rovolo,MO

Rovolo,MO

Rovolo,MO

Rovolo,MO

I also stopped off at Cervarolo on the way to the lake, where the Germans massacred  a lot of civilians during the second world war. There is a little monument in the village square and it is all quite moving.  What  they do not tell you is that the partisans massacred sometime later  a group of German soldiers that they had captured together with some local Fascists a few hundred yards down the road. There is no monument for those killings.

Cervarolo,RE

Cervarolo,RE

Cervarolo,RE