Colour photography has always allowed artists to let their hair down, take out their palettes, and repaint the world. Colour becomes a therapy then with lemon yellow, electric blue, bright red, and sunny orange. Villa Medici – the French Academy in Rome presents its new exhibition with a vitamin-rich programme. CHROMOTHERAPIA: The Feel-Good Color Photography leads us into vibrant, saturated worlds where colour strikes the retina and engages the mind.
Curated by Maurizio Cattelan, one of the foremost Italian artists on the contemporary art scene, and Sam Stourdzé, a curator specialisingin contemporary images and the relationship between art, photography, and film, the show invites us to explore the history of colour photography over the whole course of the twentieth century, through the zestful gaze of 20 artists.
The conquest of colour in photography closely followed the invention of the medium, with the first scientific experiments taking place in the mid-19th century and the Lumière brothers creating the autochrome from which the first industrial colour photographic emerged in 1907. This ushered in a century of chromatic experimentation: from ordinary scenes to philosophical and political reflections, color transcended the status of a mere tool and became a central narrative element. The French Academy that resides in the heart of Rome fulfills three complementary missions: to welcome artists, creators, researchers for residency stays; to set up a cultural and artistic programme that integrates all fields of the arts and creation aimed at a broad public; to conserve, restore, study, and make its heritage and collections known to the public. As such, this 16th-century building of Villa Medici, surrounded by a seven-hectare park on Mount Pincio, full of history and appreciation of arts, is the perfect place for the CHROMOTHERAPIA exhibition.
Whether magnifying the details of an everyday scene, redefining codes of beauty in magazines, or capturing committed subjects, colour photography offers an intensely chromatic vision of the world. This diversity of gazes and practices bears witness to a common thread: the desire to make us see things differently by infusing images with the life and emotion that only colour can convey. Presented from February 28 to June 9, the show reveals a surreal, hyperreal image that reinvents genres – from still life to the portrait – providing a joyful, colourful image of the world.
CHROMOTHERAPIA: The Feel-Good Color Photography
February 28 – June 9, 2025
Villa Medici, Rome, Italy
Artists: Miles Aldridge, Erwin Blumenfeld, Guy Bourdin, Juno Calypso, Walter Chandoha, Harold Edgerton, Hassan Hajjaj, Hiro, Ouka Leele, Yevonde Middleton, Arnold Odermatt, Ruth Ossai, Martin Parr, Pierre et Gilles, Alex Prager, Adrienne Raquel, Sandy Skoglund, Toiletpaper, William Wegman.
Curators: Maurizio Cattelan and Sam Stourdzé.
