ANTONIO BEATO. RITORNO A VENEZIA

Abstract

Over the course of almost two centuries of life, photogra- phy has undergone a progressive transformation of its disciplinary status. In this period of time it has acquired a predominant role in visual communication, but it has also significantly contributed to the development of an active dialogue between what in Italian are the terms rile-vazione and rivelazione, namely detection and revelation, between presenting the world as it is and suggesting to us the many ways in which it wants to, or can, be. Antonio Beato. Return to Venice is also, necessarily, immersed in this dialectic.The book traces Antonio Beato's photographic journey, beginning with his and his brother Felice's encounter with their future brother-in-law the British photographer and engraver James Robertson in Constantinople in the early 1850s. There is no definitive certainty about the origins of the Beato brothers, Antonio and Felice, but were probably born between 1832-35 either in Venice or in a territory that was once under the rule of the Serenissima, such as Corfu. Almost two hundred years have passed since their birth, and more than forty years since the first exhibition dedicated to them which took place at the Ikona Photo Gallery in Venice in 1983. The research that has led to the present book/catalogue began in 2021 when a significant group of photographs by Antonio Beato was rediscovered within two Albums from the archives of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia. These photographs form the core of the exhibition, which benefits from loans from other fourteen different national and international institutions with the aim to provide a broader historical overview. The offers also essays from renown historians such as Nassar Rabbat, Angelo Maggi, Cristina da Roit and Emanuele Ciampini.