Carmelo Bongiorno – Wikipedia

Carmelo Bongiorno (Catania, June 28, 1960) is an Italian photographer.

Born and raised in Catania, he began to take an interest in photography in 1978, when he began to create the first black and white shots of some areas of his birthplace. After his university studies, he founded in 1982, together with friends and colleagues Carmelo Nicosia and Carmelo Mangione, the group of artistic experimentation Phase group , in order to conduct an artistic experiment on the basis of unconventional use of photographic technique.

In 1989 he won the European Kodak Award for Photography, award recognized by the Rencontres d’Arles festival, and in 1992 he published his first monograph entitled Private places , published by the Ken Damy Photography Museum of Brescia. In 1993 he was the protagonist together with other photographers, including Raymond Depardon and Jeanloup Sieff, of a collective project entitled Milk roads , exposed Alla Biblier’s Nationale De France and published contractor.

In 1997 he published his second book entitled The intimate island , with a preface by Franco Battiato, who tells of a trip to the most particular places in Sicily through a series of photographs taken over seven years.

In 2001 he published Flashes And in 2002 he was dedicated an exhibition of his photo works by the Galerie du Château d’Eau of Toulouse. In 2003 he was also invited to an exhibition dedicated to Italo Calvino at the Milan Triennale entitled The invisible cities .

In 2008 he made Light notes , a photographic exhibition dedicated to the world of cultured music exhibited at the Bellini Theater in Catania.

In 2010 for the Brescia Biennale he made anthological Carmelo Bongiorno 1985-2010 and the relative catalog, in the same year he published the volume Voices .

In 2011 the Alinari Foundation for the history of photography commissioned him Synthesis , a research on the theme of organ transplants that will become a book and an exhibition, and in the same year he was invited by Italo Zannier to exhibit at the Italian Pavilion of the 54th Venice International Art Biennale.

Always in 2011 he is the protagonist of The new Sicilian photography school , exhibition and volume presented in Acireale and therefore to the Stelline Foundation of Milan which, together with the authors of the previous generation, marks a point on the new directions of Sicilian and European photography.

Since 2014, in parallel in Catania, he has been a first -band photography teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo.

In 2018 it is present with some pages in the volume Essential history of photography , published Postcart, and is one of the authors of the exhibition “Terre des îles” at the Polka Galerie in Paris, with Sebastiao Salgado, William Klein and Daido Moriyama.

In 2020 he presented his new and troubled work Cuts , an intimate and universal path on the theme of pain and detachment, 36 large diptiche on display at the “International Photography Center in Palermo” directed by Letizia Battaglia and a new book with a preface by Mario Cresci and Franco Battiato.

In 2021 he published the book Air, the emotion of a breath , a research work on the theme of Covid-19 pandemics and breathing rehabilitation.

• Private places , Brescia, Ken Damy photography museum, 1992.
• Milk roads: a photographic journey , Parigi, Éditions against Jour, 1994.
• The intimate island. Reflexes of a Sicilian itinerary , Preface by Franco Battiato, Turin, Sei, 1997.
• Flashes , Milan, Federico Motta Editore, 2001.
• Carmelo Bongiorno photographs , Toulouse, Éditions du Château d’Eau, 2001.
• Light notes. Journey to the soul of the Massimo Bellini Theater , Castel Bolognese, Itacalibri, 2008.
• Carmelo Bongiorno 1985/2010 , Brescia, Edizioni Agnellini Arte Moderna, 2010.
• Voices , Rome, Postcart Editrice, 2010.
• The new Sicilian photography school , Milan, Silvana Editoriale, 2011.
• Cuts , Rome, Postcart Editrice, 2020.
• Air, the emotion of a breath, Rome, Postcart Editrice, 2021.