Roberto Salbitani Echi di strade perdute

This volume brings together, for the first time in a cohesive way, the work of Roberto Salbitani, a master of contemporary Italian photography, through a selection of images – many of them previously unpublished – that narrate his journey through the urban landscape and its border territories. From the metropolises to the outer city and the forgotten spaces between city and countryside, the volume traces four fundamental projects in his career: La città invasa” (1978), “Autismi” (1997-2006), “Il punto di vista del topo” (1992) and “Viaggio in terre sospese” (1975). Salbitani possessed the rare ability to translate the complexity of reality into photography with a gaze free from cultural and ideological superstructures, creating images with an extraordinary symbolic power.

His photography is both visionary and naturalistic, inviting a profound reinterpretation of the visual for a rediscovery of the essential elements of photographic language.

Together with Luigi Ghirri and a select few of his generation, Salbitani played a pivotal role in the renewal of Italian photography from the 1970s onward, helping to redefine the landscape as a subject of investigation, beyond any preconceived notions. His work succeeded in overcoming the boundaries of genres and illustrative functions, transforming photography into an experience of research and revelation. His poetic is based on a new ethics of simplification, in which the unveiling of signs becomes an act of truth and awareness.

Bilingual volume in Italian and English.