VENETO VENTI VENTI I Veneto Twenty-Twenty

*Courtesy Image of Massimo Saretta Photographer* | ***Veneto Venti Venti.***

From 18/11//2021 To 23/01/2022
Galleria Civica Cavour – Piazza Camillo Benso Conte di Cavour 73b, 35121, Padova (PD)
Free entrance
Green Pass Required
Cured by: Prof. Scarabello Gastone
Recommended to: Contemporary photography lovers; innovative photographers fans; art enthusiasts in general in particular those who want to investigate the period we are currently living in, due to the current global pandemic, giving an Italian focus to the research.

January 12, 2022

The touring exhibition inaugurated in Padova on November 18, 2021, at Galleria Civica Cavour has been prolonged till January 23, 2022. Then it will move to Venice. Organized by SICHEL Consulting with the shots of the photographer Massimo Saretta with the Region of Veneto and the municipalities of Belluno, Padova, Rovigo, Treviso, Verona, Venice and Vicenza support.

*Courtesy Image of Virna Manattini* | **Veneto Venti Venti.**

Massimo Saretta was born in 1958 in Padova, where he works as a photographer and as school manager. With his camera always at the tips of his hands, Saretta travels the world refining his techniques and ability to prepare incredible shots, which made him specialise in reportage photography, capturing some of the most evocative moments ever.

In 2010, he went to India, where he lived for seven years. Then, he became a well-known name through his photographic book “Un’idea di India” (A Vision Of India) and the related traveling exhibition of two years in Italy. The production “Un’idea di India” (A Vision Of India) was realized collaborating with the Indian Embassy in Italy and the General Consulate of India in Italy.
His photographic research develops and deepens with other destinations like India, Nepal, Morocco, Spain, Thailand, Mexico, Romania, and even Italy.
For more than thirty years, he has been taking photographs, telling the story of colors, spirituality, cultures, and portraits of places and peoples that still fascinate him today. He has numerous solo and group exhibitions to his credit.

Massimo Saretta’s shots don’t convey the so-called “reality”, more so the perception we have while looking at it. His works can be viewed one after another, calling into question time as fruition criteria, not much as narrative time, but rather a time of reading, which involves the necessity to stop at the many signs that make up each shot like an abstract image. The subject is there, but it transcends into a composition that becomes pictorial and, as such, stands out in the perceptive, almost gestalt-like reading of emotional, individual, experiential data.
Luca Beatrice

“Veneto Venti Venti” (Veneto Twenty-twenty) was born on the initiative of Massimo Saretta, who, during the lockdown period, due to the March 2020 pandemic, obtained special permits to move between closed areas. The title is intended to identify a specific period, the year thousand and twenty, and a particular Italian region: Veneto. Through his images, we perceive the suspended time in which Italy was sadly immersed but seeking to promote culture and tourism in the area in the years to come.

The exhibition presents 80/100 images that capture the most significant places in the provincial capitals of Veneto during this particular situation. Empty, desolate, crossed only by those who had to move for proven needs. Areas that are and were significant for the city itself, where history has been made and lived through, where tourists flock and pass by. These have been captured by Saretta’s lens in a suspended time, momentarily depopulated and deserted due to a global pandemic.

The Galleria Civica Cavour exhibition itinerary is circular, meaning that it starts and ends with the entrance. The room is well lit, and the artworks are spaced out, making it easy to read for anyone entering the space, which is also equipped to accommodate people with reduced mobility. The first work, which welcomes the visitor, is one of the most significant in the exhibition. In this shot, a restaurateur is standing behind the lowered shutter, raising his glass of white wine in a toast to the photographer, who is documenting this global event. The hallmark of a person who is trying to maintain a daily routine and who has not yet thrown in the towel, even in an extreme emergency situation due to a global pandemic.

Walking through the exhibition space, it is possible to visit all the region’s provincial capitals, immersing yourself in that situation of immobility and unreal suspension, in which the cities and people found themselves due to the restrictions on movement imposed at that time.
Saretta’s shots capture in particular clubs, squares, chambers of commerce, car parks, and some of the most touristy places in the cities portrayed, all of which have in common the absence of the mass of people we are used to seeing. The visitors moving through the exhibition are led to participate in a movement of astonishment, wonder and at the same time repulsion that arises from their confrontation with his photographs.

The visitors moving through the exhibition are led to participate in a movement of astonishment, wonder, and at the same time repulsion that arises from their confrontation with Massimo Saretta’s photographs. The places that the people who live in these particular towns recognize, which are Veneto’s symbols, are transformed before our eyes into something unreal. It is almost impossible to recognize Rialto Bridge at first glance, completely exposed, as if it were an exercise of architectural reconstruction. Striking are the portraits of the places where we usually find ourselves company, such as bars, restaurants, squares, sharing an aperitif or lunch. Even less recognizable are those spaces where people typically go for entertainment purposes such as theatres and opportunities for cultural aggregation like museums and historical centers. All deserted, abandoned, uninhabited, becoming a new symbol of danger.