Cagnacci, Cesari, Putzu, Avevo Due Paure – ENG

Avevo Due Paure

photos by Paolo Cagnacci and Matteo Cesari with video by Theo Putzu

OPENING: January 9, 2025 at Rifugio Digitale

January 9 – 26, 2025 | Wed.-Sun. 11.00 am.-7.00 pm.

From January 9th to 26th, 2025 Rifugio Digitale presents the exhibition Avevo Due Paure by the photographers Paolo Cagnacci and Matteo Cesari, with a video by Theo Putzu, curated by Irene Alison and Paolo Cagnacci. The exhibition was realised in collaboration with Forma Edizioni and with the contribution of Fondazione CR Firenze. The videos were realised thanks to the support of Banca Ifigest and Unicoop Firenze.

The opening will be held on Thursday, January 9, 2025 at 6:30 pm in the presence of the artists and curators

Paolo Cagnacci e Matteo Cesari, Avevo due paure, 2024.

Paolo Cagnacci and Matteo Cesari, Avevo Due Paure, 2024.

Avevo Due Paure
Press text

The Partisan Resistance Movement in Italy during World War II involved a series of political and military actions, guerilla warfare and a clandestine battle in which men and women of different ideological beliefs and different social strata risked, and often lost, their lives, united by the common cause of liberating Italy from the Nazi-Fascist occupation.

What remains today of this fundamental element of the Italian identity, beyond the pages in history textbooks and the memories of the few surviving witnesses of those terrible days? With the approach of the eightieth anniversary of Italy’s Liberation, the photographers Paolo Cagnacci and Matteo Cesari – who also authored “1:04 a.m.”, a visual history of the bombing at the Georgofili Institute – are joined by the director Theo Putzu in a return to the past, seen through the medium of photography, with the exhibition Avevo Due Paure. Because History is not just what is written in books. History is in the stones, the soil, the eyes of those who remain. The roots of the trees around us are bathed in History and of History we ourselves are made. History speaks to us, and can tell us many things, if we know how to listen.

Avevo Due Paure – the exhibition curated by Paolo Cagnacci and Irene Alison at the Rifugio Digitale gallery – is not only an itinerary of the memory: it also frames issues echoes in current situations and events. It is a voyage in space and time that seeks to give shape and reality to the past but also to preserve what remains, and cultivate a legacy that is still alive and fertile today.

AVEVO DUE PAURE

by Giuseppe Colzani

The first was killing

The second was dying

I was seventeen years old

Then came the night when all was still

In that darkness lives were exchanged

Bodies pressed against the barricades,

some died, waiting

Bodies pressed against the barricades,

some lived, hoping

And when the sun rose again

It was April 25th

Meet the artist

Paolo Cagnacci

He studied photography at Fondazione Studio Marangoni, where he currently teaches portrait photography and lighting techniques. He has done photographic projects for Regione Toscana, Festival della Creatività, Festival dei Popoli, Osservatorio dei Balcani, Fondazione Michelucci, Tempo Reale, Unicoop Firenze, Comune di Firenze, Fondazione Telecom, Mibact, CNA. He has worked for companies such as Patrizia Pepe, Diesel, Paula Cademartori, Peuterey, Starbucks, Stefanel, Ottodame, Dmail. He has published his images in magazines such as D – la Repubblica, Corriere della Sera, la Repubblica, La Stampa, Sette, SportWeek, L’Espresso, Pagina99, Specchio, Left, Donna Moderna, Famiglia Cristiana, La Lettura and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. His projects have been distributed by Luz Photo Agency and Parallelozero Agency.

Matteo Cesari

After graduating in Conservation of Cultural Heritage, he graduated from the three-year photography course at the Marangoni Foundation in Florence. Over the years, he has pursued documentary photography projects on social issues. His works have been published in various magazines such as D – la Repubblica, Internazionale, Sette and exhibited at Photography festivals including Photolux, Magazzini Fotografici, Slideluck. Currently, in addition to pursuing personal research projects, he is involved in commercial and fashion photography.

Theo Putzu

Is a director and videomaker. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, course of scenography, filmmaking address. In 2008/2010 he attended a master’s degree in film directing at CECC – Centre d’Estudis Cinematogràfics de Catalunya – Barcelona. His latest works, PAPER MEMORIES, AS LEAVES …, 7.83Hz, have been selected in festivals around the world winning more than 80 awards. He works as a videomaker in the field of fashion and as a director/editor for commercials and film projects.

Program

January 9, 12:00 pm: press conference by appointment with artists and curators
write to info@rifugiodigitale.it
January 9, 6:30 pm: exhibition opening with artists and curators
free entrance
January 9 – January 26 2025, Wed.- Sun. 11,00 am -7,00 pm: tours of the exhibition
free entrance; reservation required for guided tours, write to info@rifugiodigitale.it

Useful Materials

Get to know our reality and that of our partners

Rifugio Digitale is an exhibition space inside an antiaircraft tunnel that presents itself as a place dedicated to the promotion of digital art, where architecture, design, photography, cinema, literature and all the other multiple artistic and expressive forms also find their own dimension, dialoguing with each other. The cultural proposals and events that we welcome in our space are the result of a great deal of collaboration and research between subjects and realities of the territory with which we share perspectives and objectives.

with the contribution of Fondazione CR Firenze
with the collaboration of Forma Edizioni
with video production support from Banca Ifigest
with video production support from Unicoop Firenze