MARCO PESARESI, the poet of the encounter

Marco Pesaresi was one of the great talents of Italian photography in the 1990s. He was born in Rimini in 1964, the city to which he dedicated his last work, perhaps his most poetic (Rimini, ed. Contrasto, 2003) ;he joined Contrasto in 1990 and began to travel between Africa and Europe, committing himself to large long-term projects. A full description of his biography and work here.

Underground, the work on the subways of ten major metropolises that saw him engaged for more than 5 years and that became a highly successful book published by Contrasto in 1998 explores the underground life at different latitudes of the world, made by that same globalized, hurried and indifferent humanity, the very emblem of modernity.

A ceaseless stream of hidden life flows in the recondite meanderings of the underground. Marco does not just want to document, he does not choose to rely on the stylistic trappings of crude journalism, but allows himself to be drawn into the poetry of the encounter. He does not try to steal images surreptitiously, but through his pocket-sized Minox 35 he tries to lower the barriers between himself and the other.

Despite language difficulties that make his freedom of movement very difficult in some cities, he tries first to understand. In Moscow as in Tokyo, in Calcutta as in Mexico City, in New York as in Berlin, his images are the fruit of a search for contact and sharing, for mutual understanding.

“All the photography in Underground is romantic. So are the clowns, the young people kissing, the women and children, but so are the deprived and homeless. In his travels among the aching humanity Marco sought the beauty of the soul, the intensity of gazes and the warmth of encounter.”
(Renata Ferri)