Palermo. Mondello beach

Massimo Vitali has been active in the field of photojournalism since the 1960s. His photographs are characterised by images of public spaces packed with large numbers of people engaged in recreational activities. Pools, parks, discos, crowded beaches: the obsessive reiteration of the same subjects and sites, the absence of foregrounds associated with the long- or far-shot – producing vast and uniform panoramas of the landscape and crowds – are technical expedients capable of emphasising the progressive loss of individual personalities, the paradox of a culture increasingly more founded on imitation and conformism. These same subjects return in the photographs released for "atlante italiano 007. Rischio paesaggio" commissioned by the MAXXI. Minimising emotion, regulating light to the point of rarefying the image and selecting privileged, critically “dissociated” and ironically voyeuristic vantage points, Vitali interprets the theme of abusive tourism in two impressive images captured in Sicily, at the height of the summer season.