HBL Exhibitions: Steve McCurry at MACRO, Rome

Monday 19 December 2011

Steve McCurry at MACRO, Rome; photo by Pasquale Formisano


Running until April 29 at the MACRO museum, Rome, is a remarkable exhibition of more than 200 photos by Steve McCurry. Designed by Italian designer Fabio Novembre, the structure of the exhibition is inspired by a nomad village and the curation, also by Novembre, is based on similarity of emotions rather than more traditional categorisation.

Steve McCurry at MACRO, Rome; photo by Pasquale Formisano

“When Benoit Mandelbrot described his experience of research, he used to define it as nomadic by choice, pioneering out of need; thus, when I think of Steve McCurry, I tend to apply the same aphorism to his life of tireless research of the human nature. The subjects of McCurry’s photographs represent the reality hidden behind that glossy communication which pretends to represent humanity. Steve has all the characteristics of the true researcher: from the patience necessary to carry out an experiment (or to take a photograph), to the restlessness that always pushes him toward a new frontier to cross”, explains Novembre.

Steve McCurry at MACRO, Rome; photo by Pasquale Formisano
But why a setting that looks like a nomad camp? “McCurry’s life looks like a long journey in which his New York residence in 5th Avenue is a baggage room more than a refuge, since, without any hint of rhetoric, his home is everywhere. While our idea of home more and more resembles arrogant declarations of power well established on the land we occupy, to pictures of individual happiness that do not envisage any collective effects, the houses in his photos are precarious... And it is exactly that suggestion that I have tried to represent within the large spaces of the Macro, a layout similar to a nomads’ village, with structures that merge,” says Novembre.

Steve McCurry at MACRO, Rome; photo by Pasquale Formisano


Steve McCurry at MACRO, Rome; photo by Tommaso Martelli

Steve McCurry at MACRO, Rome; photo by Pasquale Formisano