Enzo Obiso (Campobello di Mazara, Italy). In 1976, on the occasion of his first solo exhibition at the Documenta Gallery, he displays a series of young people's portraits, set in the classrooms of the Academy and of Turin's Art School. He graduates from the Accademia Albertina in Turin in 1978, and, in the same year, he goes to Ethiopia for the editor Piero Campi, to realize a photographic project following the Eritrean Liberation Front. In 1980, his second solo exhibition: this, for Arti Visive Proposte by Francesco Poli at the Palazzo Carignano in Turin; in 1983, again in Turin, he founds along with some artists and critics, the cultural association of VSV in Via Po 28, one of the first exhibition spaces directly run by artists. The VSV has represented a good springboard for young artists and an important creative workshop which helped to build that "energy" which is, today, Sistema Arte Torino. In 1989 an in 1991 he travels to India and Mongolia to realize visual notes of professional adventures, lived with intimacy and reflection. The publisher Monica Smith Editore (Turin) has realized from his work about India a photo book with pictures in b&w, this, along with a parallel exhibition, has toured Europe from 1991 till 1995 through the prestigious internacional circuit of Fnac. Also from 1989, is the exhibition India held at the Shirley Day & Rossi Gallery in London. Starting in 1990, he begins a photographic journey on the female nude ( which is still going on) displayed for the first time in 1993 during the exhibition Ritratti di beata bellezza by Guido Costa, on the occasion of the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto and at the Boudoir de la Photo Gallery in Bolzano. Also in 1993, he's part of a group of four italian photographers (Enzo Obiso, Gianni Gardin, Massimo Vitali and Giuliano Carafoli) who were invited to Mediterranea, the fifth International Biennial of Photography in Turin, to tell about the tree symbol of the Mediterranean, through the expo Fin dove cresce l'ulivo, then exhibited, in the following year, at various locations in Italy. Since 1994, he's working with the Art Gallery Franco Toselli in Milan. Of 1996 are the solo exhibitions Partito preso at the GNAM (National Modern Art Gallery) in Rome, by Anna Mattirolo and Invito at Cardi Gallery in Milan. In the same year he took part in the exhibitions: 1950-1990 Ultime Generazioni during the XII Rome Quadrennial, Finestre at Viafarini Space in Milan, Lodi all'Arte at the civic museum of Todi. The second half of the nineties still sees Enzo Obiso as a protagonist in important solo and group exhibitions in public and private spaces, including: in 1997: Partito Preso: Primo Bilancio at the GNAM, National Modern Art Gallery of Rome by Anna Mattirolo and Gattopardi – Artisti viaggiatori in Sicilia in Capo d'Orlando ( Me) by Luca Beatrice. In 1998: 1968-1998 Fotografia e Arte in Italia by Walter Guadagnini and Filippo Maggia, expo held at the GCM, Civic Gallery of Modern Art of Modena. In 1999: opening of his two solo exhibitions Tempo Ideale by Denis Curti and Palpiti at the Galleria d'Arte in scena – Studio Bocchi of Rome. In the same year he takes part in the project Da Guarene all'Etna, via mare, via terra for the Foundation Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, presented in 1999 in Taormina and then exposed in 2000 in Modena, in 2011 in Milan at the Foundation Stelline and, in 2002, in an updated version titled Da Guarene all'Etna, 02 – in the Pavilion Italy of Venice's Biennale. The 2000s begin with a solo exhibition at the Gallery Ca' di Fra in Milan, on the occasion of which, as in the previouses Tempo Ideale and Invito, he presents nude scenes, landscapes and shots of everyday life. "Enzo Obiso reveals, through India and Invito, an extraordinary attention to the waste of meanings between sets and fragments of the same reality, exploited with sensitivity and great skills to build visual paths of knowledge. We find among them, side by side, without solution of continuity, natural landscapes and artificial figures of living beings – be they animals or people – and amazing fantastic figurations (…) " (Marina Miraglia from "Il 900 in fotografia e il caso torinese". Edizioni Hopefulmonster 2001, Torino) In 2002 he joins the collection of GAM Gallery of Modern Contemporary Art in Turin on the occasion of the exhibition Il Silenzio della superficie. In 2003 he tooks part in the project Atlante Italiano '003: with this, DARC constitutes the first nucleus of the Contemporary Photography's Collection for the Museum of Architecture of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts; to follow, the homonymous exhibition at the Fondation MAXXI in Rome. Then, the solo exhibitions: A occhi nudi, 2005, expo entirely dedicated to the nude and characterized by a constellation of photographs of eyes ( they belong to people who are watching at Art ), Mongolia and Images of the Steppes in 2006, respectively in London and in Bath, at the Museum of East Asian Art. Among the most recent institutional exhibitions are: in 2010, H2O Oeuvres of the Collection Sandretto Re Rebaudengo at the Palais Lumière Evian, France; in 2011 L'Italia va in vacanza by Pio Baldi and Margherita Guccione, at the Foundation MAXXI in Rome; in 2012 … e Bellezza sia! at the 107 Foundation in Turin. Exhibitions, projects and institutional participations are collected and presented in books, catalogs and art magazines. The catalogs of Invito and Ritratti di beata bellezza are enriched with words written by Guido Costa, Tempo Ideale is introduced by the text Il tempo Inventato by Denis Curti and Orizzonti Erratici by Tiziana Conti. The motive Frammenti di un tempo interiore of Filippo Maggia introduces the work of Enzo Obiso for the exhibition Silenzio della superficie. In the book A occhi nudi the writing belongs to Francesco Poli. In 2013 took part to "The Naked and the Nude", international anthology of photography edited by Peter Wiermair. In 2014 presents at Must Gallery, Lugano "Nostalgia del Futuro", the first part of a project producted completely at Havana. In 2016 for "guidocostaproject edizioni Torino", created "La casa di Francesco" a artist book of 12 images of the Studio and the house of Francesco Casorati. Text by Guido Costa. In 2019 "Nostalgia del Futuro, L'Havana, Cuba" at GSF Contemporary Art, FoTo Fotografi a Torino. In 2020 "Pleasuregarden" at Podbielski Contemporary, Crated by Pierre Andrè Podbliesky with an essay by Angela Madesani. Since 2011 he's co-founder and Artistic Director of PHOS Multipurpose Center for Photography and Visual Arts. Lives and work in Turin.
www.guidocostaprojects.com
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Enzo Obiso, Fotografi
Elisa 2003
Red velvet 2014
cover progetto, Enzo Obiso, Fotografi, homepage-4
Barbara 1991
The body of women has always had a strong attraction for me, be it real, imagined or represented by artists, starting from the classics of painting up to the nude in photography. My work on female nude is completely made using natural light and is born from the fusion of these 'real and imagined' definitions in the hope of being able to celebrate their beauty. The women I photograph (some I have photographed for several years) are real women, in the sense that they are not professional models and all, apart from a few exceptions, know my work well. Women who pose with shared conviction, sometimes suggesting poses, always actively involved with the balance and tensions returned by the images. In some cases I had the feeling of being a camera operator rather than the creator of the scene or the author of the photo, to the point of wondering if I was the one who established the content of that image. The first part of this work begins in 1989 and ends in 2018, the year I left the Turin studio, where I took almost all the photographs in the brightest room. The second part is in the making.