On the evening of Tuesday, September 17, the IIC in New York hosted the opening of Chapters 1975-2023, where renowned photographer Priscilla Rattazzi shared her artistic and personal journey. The black-and-white photographs are displayed in three different spaces of the Institute, ranging from portraits of famous figures in everyday settings to lunar landscapes of southern Utah and the swaying branches of trees that have filled the artist’s eyes in recent years. The opening event attracted a large audience of art enthusiasts and prominent figures from New York’s cultural and business worlds. Among the attendees were Princess Giulia Ghirardi Borghese, architect Peter Marino, John Elkann (Chairman and CEO of Exor N.V., Chairman of Stellantis N.V. and Ferrari N.V.), Giampaolo Pioli (Director of La Voce di New York), Mario Platero (GEI Group, Italian Exponents Group), Marco Voena (Voena Gallery), Dr. Virgilio Sacchini (Memorial Sloan Kettering), and photographer Christophe Von Honenberg. The artist was also joined by her three children, Maximilian Mohlmann, Andrea Whittle, and Sasha Whittle, who were present to celebrate this significant milestone in her career.
The portraits (created between 1975 and 2023) include photos of Alberto Moravia, Gianni Agnelli, Alighiero Boetti, Leo Castelli, Diana Vreeland, and Peter Marino.
The Hoodooland project captures the incredible, endangered Hoodoo rock formations of southern Utah. The series title refers to the majestic and powerful Hoodoos, rock formations that have taken millennia to form in the Lake Powell and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument regions in southern Utah. In these unusual portrait-like photographs, Rattazzi animates the sandstone, basalt, and limestone towers with a haunting humanity.
The Three Lindens project features thirteen photographs from the book Three Lindens—which also includes two short essays—that evoke an extraordinary blend of tenderness, turbulent, heartbreaking, and heroic moments, representing her farewell to life and the properties in East Hampton she loved, and to three huge, majestic, and as she discovered, ancient “champion” linden trees that watched over everything. This project was done in collaboration with the Peter Marino Art Foundation in Southampton, NY (2023).
“What has always guided me as an artist is my passion for black and white. The choice of photographs for this exhibition primarily focuses on the affection for very important figures in my life who have since passed away. The void left behind has, over time, been filled by nature. From the lunar landscapes of Utah to the deep roots of ancient trees, my love for nature has taken on a crucial role in my artistic evolution. I have thus selected a photographic journey spanning from 1975 to 2023 that I hope illustrates the latitude of my work. I am very grateful for this extraordinary opportunity to exhibit my work at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York.” — Priscilla Rattazzi
Priscilla Rattazzi is an Italian-born photographer whose work has been featured for over four decades in international magazines, galleries, and museum exhibitions.
