Paolo Pellegrin: KOSOVO. Town of Pristina. 2000. (Crows over the cemetery). © Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos
Deichtorhallen Hamburg is currently hosting a retrospective of one of the world’s leading documentary photographers, Paolo Pellegrin (b. 1964). The exhibition remains on view through March 1, 2020.
Born and educated in Rome, Pellegrin spent three years training as an architect before he experienced a change of heart decided to take up the lens. In 1992, he began to work on his own hard-hitting reportage projects, on subjects such as the status of Romani diaspora in Italy and the children of post-war Bosnia. Pellegrin won his first of several World Press Photo awards for his work on the AIDS crisis in Uganda in 1995. He served as a contract photographer for Newsweek for a decade and has been a Magnum Photos full member since 2005. He travels extensively, covering news events mainly in the Middle East and Africa.
The career-spanning exhibition, titled “PAOLO PELLEGRIN – UN’ANTOLOGIA,” sheds new light on the photographer’s work and vision. The retrospective showcases Pellegrin’s reportage photography, featuring work he created throughout the early 1990s – the decade of his career breakthrough – up to the present day, including many pieces from his personal archive.
Paolo Pellegrin: IRAQ. 2016. (A man fleeing from ISIS controlled areas is seen in the outskirts of eastern Mosul).© Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos
“UN’ANTOLOGIA” is an extended version of an exhibition of the same name first shown at Maxxi, Rome. On view are more than 200 analog and digital prints, including a number that have never before been published. These are accompanied by only the bare minimum of interpretive text; instead, the photographs are contextualized by occasional video clips shot by Pellegrin himself. An installation that sheds further light on Pellegrin’s process is also on display, featuring notebooks, sketches, prints, negatives, transparencies, and printed ephemera. It demonstrates the exhaustive process of visual research which underpins his practice.
The exhibition is a fitting tribute to the Robert Capa Gold Medal winner and his lifelong commitment to capturing the effect of trauma on the human condition. It also serves as an important reminder that reportage photography is far more than simply a tool for the dissemination of news.
Paolo Pellegrin: The death of pope John Paul II. Vatican City, April 2, 2005.© Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos
Pellegrin’s practice is often defined as “concerned journalism”; his diverse subjects include urban poverty, disease, natural or environmental disaster, and tragic conflicts from different parts of the world. In the words of the museum, “all his stories are defined by an urgent imperative to bear witness to suffering and resilience.”
“PAOLO PELLEGRIN – UN’ANTOLOGIA” continues to be on view through March 1, 2020, at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Deichtorstraße 1, 20095 Hamburg, Germany.
For details, visit: https://www.deichtorhallen.de/en
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