Bruce Davidson / Zabriskie Point The faces of America

Exhibitions

A new appointment at "Spazio Antonioni" tells the story of the meeting on the set of the movie Zabriskie Point between the great photographer and one of the fathers of modern cinematography

Landed in the United States in 1968 to depict a country that embodied the essence of its time, Michelangelo Antonioni chooses Bruce Davidson as scene photographer on the set of Zabriskie Point: to unite them is the vocation to peer into the folds of reality without preconceptions, giving the observer an enchanted, and at the same time aware gaze.

Entered in the legendary Magnum agency in 1958, the American photographer put into play, since the first production, an extraordinary capacity to delve into unfamiliar territories by bringing out, even from the most degraded subjects, a moral and aesthetic dignity. The reportage that he dedicates to Zabriskie Point is considered one of the masterful services in the history of scene photography. The movie proposes a journey into the youthful universe of the countercultures, but it is also the occasion to explore a world full of lights and shadows in which current features can still be seen:

«le montagne, il deserto, la città, le foreste di cactus, ma anche i ghetti, la gente che soffre, quella che si rivolta, quella che sa e capisce senza la forza di rivoltarsi, quella che forse è colpevole» (Antonioni, 1969).

«the mountains, the desert, the city, the cactus forests, but also the ghettos, the people who suffer, the ones who revolt, the ones who know and understand without the strength to revolt, the ones who maybe is aware» (Antonioni, 1969).

Davidson finds infinite matter to give an unforgivable face to each one of these facets. Portraits, views of Los Angeles, lunar landscapes of the Death Valley give back the composite mosaic of a society where the myth of wellness and the escape in the Wild West, the violence and repression, the most futuristic architectures and an almost primordial nature coexist. Prolonging the gaze beyond the usual, the most common reality reveals itself in its unexpected poetry and the loneliest landscape sublimates into a work of art at the limits of abstraction. Another fascinating point of tangency between Antonioni and Davidson is precisely in this affinity with visual researches that challenge the properties of matter, be it the reflective plane of a glass or the asperity of a desert rock.

Foto: © Bruce Davidson / Magnum Photos

Where

Ferrara - Spazio Antonioni - Palazzo Massari, C.so Porta Mare, 5

When

Until October, 12th, 2025

Opening

10.00-13.00 /15.00-18.00. Monday closed.
Special dates:
Monday June 2nd

Closing days

Monday

Event url

http://artemoderna.comune.fe.it/

Price

Full price € 6,00; Reduced € 400 (over 65; university students, groups of 15 people or more, school teachers with identification pass, authorised categories.)

Free under 18 and with MyFeCard owners