Paolo Simonazzi

Taken at different times and down the length of the Italian peninsula, the images of Bell’Italia (Fair Italy) were selected by Simonazzi from his personal archive. The title comes from a road sign, but what specifically sets the  tone of the entire project are the images in which the flag does not appear physically but through the three colours associated with it.  It is from these particular photographs that the most authentic nature of the author's poetics emerges. At first, we get to 'read' a piece from the everyday, apparently banal, reality which characterizes Simonazzi's study. Immediately thereafter, however, the eye quickly goes searching for the reason why that particular photograph appears within a project on the Tricolour flag.
The author finds the perfect equilibrium between chance and construction, between free inspiration and relevance to the theme. Simonazzi never forces viewers into a single interpretation, but invites them to identify the different levels of meaning of the image, triggered by clues spread across the space of his shots.  The photographs grouped under this series have different overtones, ranging from the affective to the ironic, from objectivity to surreality, without one ever prevailing over the other, and without any intention of providing a single point of view of reality, whose prime characteristic is to be varied and not subject to a single interpretation. The flags of Bell’Italia are a unifying factor of the landscape, a leitmotif for a reflection on the country and its history: this is where the 'reading' of the photographs stops, where Simonazzi deliberately stops, suggesting other possible paths of interpretation with skilful lightness.

Paolo Simonazzi works as a physiatrician and sports medicine doctor in Reggio Emilia. He has been devoting himself to photography since 1990. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibits in Italy and abroad, has published several photography books and his images are held in the collections of some important Italian and foreign institutions and museums. He first participated in Fotografia Europea in 2006 with the group exhibit “Uno sguardo sulla città” (A glance upon the city), subsequently also shown in Rome at the “Roma Fotografia” international festival. In 2007 he presented the exhibit Tra la Via Emilia e il West (Between the Via Emilia and the West), produced with MAMbo – the Bologna Museum of Modern Art. Paolo Simonazzi’s latest project, Mondo Piccolo (Small world), was exhibited in 2010.