Marianne Sin Pfältzer: Open-Air Gallery In Golfo Aranci 0 Comments
In the old part of Golfo Aranci village, hanging from the oldest houses, a series of mainly black and white photos tells the story of the last century's fishermen's community emigrated from Ponza, Ventotene and Pozzuoli towns in South Italy mainland because attracted by the singular abundance of fish in the Golfo Aranci Sardinian sea. The photos were taken between the 1950s and 1960s by the talented German Photographer Marianne Sin – Pfältzer.
Landed in Sardinia to take pictures of the Sardinian territories' daily life, she was immediately conquered by the old port of Golfo Aranci which most stimulated her artistic sensitivity, with its fishermen repairing the nets, the prey they captured, the elderly, the young people and the children who lived the reality of the community of those years, before being transformed by tourism and the railway industry.
A selection of the most beautiful and significant photos are now a permanent urban exhibition dedicated to her. Marianne Sin-Pfältzer found in Sardinia her own dimension and, although she had been travelling around the world because of her free spirit, the most important production of her work was made in Sardinia, where she then decided to settle down. Sardinia was her second home, her choice of an archaic and ancestral refuge. Her photography art, one of the few female glances on post-war Sardinia, captures the complex phase of change from ancient society projected towards modernity, often difficult to achieve because of its firmly anchored roots. Marianne's great ability to empathize with people has allowed her to tune in with them, obtaining portraits of great intensity capturing their soul. By publishing her photos in German magazines and books, she helped introducing Sardinia to Germany.
She permanently moved to Sardinia, first to Villanovaforru and then to Nuoro, in 2005, and she continued to take pictures of this much-loved island. In 2012 the Ilisso publishing house printed "Sardegna paesaggi umani", the first monograph on her photographic work (also translated into German), which reveals the soul of Sardinia: "The volume is a milestone for anyone who wants to know the art of making bread, sweets and salted confectionery, ceramics, fabrics, baskets and traditional jewels handicrafts, village festivals and relevant processions, the typical architecture, and the production of bottarga and cowbells, the storage of fruit and vegetables, the production and export of cheese and, even more unexpectedly, the youth protest in 1968 ... and much more." (Ilisso)
Marianne Sin-Pfältzer died on August 28, 2015, after a road accident, at the age of 89. Years spent looking through the lens of her camera at people and things, discovering their magic and returning portraits of unique intensity to the world.
“A beautiful photograph tells a story, reveals a place, an event, a mood, is more powerful than thousands of written pages”. (Isabel Allende)
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Written by Daniela Toti
Photos from the open-air gallery by @Italofile
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