From 4th April until 28th June 2024, 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery is proud to present the works of photographer Gabriele Micalizzi, for the first time in Milan. The exhibition, called “A KIND OF BEAUTY”, curated by Tiziana Castelluzzo, brings together the finest photographs, ranging from black and white prints to gelatin silver prints and colour, painstakingly selected from negatives preserved in the artist’s archive.

On display are the most significant shots depicting some of the venues of the biggest clashes of the last two decades, starting from the Arab revolutions, passing through the conflicts in the Middle Eastern against the caliphate through to the current conflicts in the Ukraine and Palestine. According to Gabriele, the war is like a theatre, a term used in the military environment to define the conflict zone, where everyone has a specific role, in a certain scene and in a limited amount of time. The photojournalist’s task is to illustrate and narrate using a single weapon: the camera, the only available means that becomes a tool of action to share that stage where emotions run high, expand, and are exacerbated, friendships are consolidated or lost, and solidarity becomes a primary and essential need. By using photography with impeccable skill, Micalizzi is able to create images that are not slaves of reality or intention but instead represent a world of its own with its coherence, autonomy and evocative power. "Gabriele has an extraordinary ability to synthesize; he manages to combine poetry, power, and beauty in a single shot. His photographs, even the most explicit ones, are a metaphorical expression of a wider, more complex reality that leads the viewer to ask questions about events, mankind and the nature of conflicts. Gabriele not only portrays war, but he experiences it first hand by standing next to the fighters, in the middle of the scene, whilst facing their same risks. His shots portray not only what he sees, but his entire emotional baggage too (...).” (Tiziana Castelluzzo) His works do not oppress the observer nor reduce the image to a spectacle of photographic virtuosity, but instead generate a broad and open terrain of engagement, a space where the image articulates its information and evokes in the viewer multiple meanings that transcend itself. Despite being rich in detail, his photographs are arranged in a precise composition order without ever undermining the complexity of reality. In a historical moment in time where individuals are submerged by information and influenced by media that shape people’s aesthetic consciousness, blurring the lines between reality and fiction, Gabriele Micalizzi has found a way to report on the war from an invisible perspective, by using his experience to create works of art (photographs) that capture the gaze, the mind, and the soul of the observer.