Exhibition > Pensiero verticale (Vertical thought)

Almost all of the photographs in this exhibition were carefully planned around a table and then shot up and down rock faces and cliffs, with obsessive care being taken in the search for the right angle and light. The extent of Maruzzo’s meticulousness even irritated his companions, yet they were always willing to help despite the long waits and repetition that his vision demanded.

The pictures, however, also capture the lighter moments that peppered the shoot: the witty quips, the light-hearted teasing, the occasional excessively colourful language, and the drinking at the end of the day. Nevertheless, the best photographs are the ones taken by chance, accidentally, the ones that seize the moment.

Photography is many things, and carpe diem holds a special place among these. Photography is like a poem that needs to be scribbled down otherwise its verses risk being lost forever. A shot need not be technically perfect as the photographer risks creating a sterile, emotionless moment. The photographs were shot in black-and-white for this very reason because, at times, things are taken for granted in colour. Black-and-white, however, dramatises and emphasises the effort, passion and anger, as well as those unique gestures found only in climbing. Photography is a language, the art of expressing what lies in your soul.

Stefano Maruzzo was born in 1965 in Lumignano, a small village in the Berici hills of Vicenza.  He fell in love with photography when he was still in his teens. He began to cultivate an interest in the language of image, which led him to become a professional cameraman when he was still very young. It was in photography, however, that his expression achieved its full potential, and his unknown home, Lumignano, was his biggest inspiration. The village has some of the most evocative scenery in the Berici hills, which lie south of Vicenza. As early as the 1920s, its beautiful limestone cliffs were a training ground for Vicenza’s mountaineers.

The exhibition will be hosted in Sala Stampa in the foyer of the Auditorium Santa Chiara, in via Santa Croce 67 from 29 April to 8 May, between 9 am and 1 pm and 2 pm to 7 pm.