From May 25 at Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome, Arthemisia presents the world premiere of “A Beautiful World”, the new project conceived by Mario Testino, one of the most renowned contemporary photographers on the international stage.
Born in Peru in 1954 with Irish and Italian heritage, Mario Testino moved to London in 1976, where he began to make a name for himself and became one of the most innovative fashion and portrait photographers of his generation. His photographs appear in the leading fashion magazines worldwide. A highly influential figure in the art of fashion, his images have often become as legendary as the people he has photographed, from Kate Moss to Madonna, from Naomi Campbell to Diana, Princess of Wales.
Terence Pepper, curator of photography at the National Portrait Gallery in London, called him the “John Singer Sargent of our times,” while the gallery’s director, Charles Saumarez Smith, speaking about the record-breaking 2002 retrospective “Mario Testino PORTRAITS,” highlighted the strong connection between Testino’s work and the tradition of court portraitists, from Holbein to Reynolds, from Goya to Rubens.
Over the past seven years, his search for new subjects beyond the boundaries of the fashion world has led him to a new creative path, where he found inspiration in the cultural identities of the countries where he had begun to set his fashion shoots since 2007.
Since 2017, he has traveled through more than 30 countries, focusing his art on exploring the cultural and traditional uniqueness still found in a rapidly globalized world.
“A Beautiful World” is Testino’s extraordinarily magical and nuanced navigation through the complexities and contrasts of our multiple ways of belonging: individuality and conformity, community, rituals, ideas of the self, symbols, and belief systems. “When I started taking photos for A Beautiful World,” said Mario Testino, “I thought I was driven first and foremost by curiosity and secondly by the desire to document traditions that were disappearing. As the project evolved, I realized I was driven by a desire to understand the concept of belonging. Our identity is given to us primarily by the place where we are born and raised, whether we admit it or not. In fact, no matter where we go, we will always carry it with us. But the true beauty of the world is revealed to us by finding ourselves in others.”
Photos from the exibithion in Rome. © Mario Testino