Photogallery
...from
the Historical Archive of C. F. La
Gondola
Years
'50 - '70 Authors
Basaldella
Collection
Despite recurrent crises due to
factors that destabilised the
management of the Circolo la
Gondola, it has never ceased
practising its institutional
activity over these years: the
diffusion of photography in all its
forms.
Once the institutional capacity was
determined taking the form of a
judicial body of association and
social promotion the Circolo has
operated with enthusiasm and
commitment in various directions.
The most important of these was the
creation of its Photographic
Archive.
Starting with only a few hundred
images - the historical heritage of
the Circolo - some ten years ago we
began to recuperate photographic
archives of ex-members and third
parties, which would otherwise have
been dispersed if not destroyed.
Today, due to a capillary and
insistent methodology, the
Historical Archive of the Gondola is
proud of its 13,000 vintage prints
which include some of the most
significant names in Italian
photography from the post-war to the
present: other than ex-members, we
have 2,000 prints by Paolo Monti,
the entire archives of Sergio Del
Pero, Giorgio Giacobbi, Stefano
Boscolo, Ennio Puntin Gognan, Carlo
Trois, Laura Martinelli Stroili, as
well as numerous prints by Gianni
Berengo Gardin, Fulvio Roiter, Bepi
Bruno, Elio Ciol and Carlo
Bevilacqua.
Works by Mario Giacomelli, Giorgio
Lotti, Piergiorgio Branzi, Alfredo
Camisa, Luigi Ghirri, Mario
Cattaneo, Ernesto Fantozzi,
Francesco Cito, Pino Guidolotti,
Nino Migliori, Giuseppe Pino, Mario
Lasalandra and many others are also
included.
The Archive, held at the Museo
Fortuny, is nearly entirely
digitalised and mostly visible on
the Gondola website. Iconographic
collections aside, the Gondola also
has a small but important library
collection and a rich social
documentation.
Considered one of the best archives
in our country for its photographic
quality and historic density, it is
visited by scholars, those who are
passionate about photography and in
particular by students for their
research.
Exhibitions have begun again and
increased. Over the last ten years
we have hosted more than thirty,
mostly thematic, exhibitions based
both on Members’ unpublished
photographs and images from the
Historic Archives. At times aspects
of the problematic realities of
Venice were the object of the show:
the Arsenale, the territorial
transformations, the connection
between the city and the water, its
element/pivot, the memory of the
past. At others, La Gondola focused
on the evolution of photographic
philosophies with recent titles such
as “0/24 – quotidian connections”
(2006), “Traces of the present – a
reflection on contemporaneity”
(2007), “Human, being” (2008). These
exclude any essential requirement of
the concept of “beauty” or virtuous
intentions, suggesting instead the
uncertainty and ambiguity of
contemporary photography.
