Marialba Russo
A female figure made unrecognisable by movement, immersed in a dark landscape is portrayed next to where a stream flows. This image is part of the series l’Incanto (the enchantment), the first volume of a trilogy by Marialba Russo dedicated to the theme of the quest that the human, animal, real and symbolic subject carries out within and beyond itself.
Two white dresses are abandoned among the rocks near a sulphurous spring. This image is part of the series l’Incanto (the enchantment), the first volume of a trilogy dedicated by Marialba Russo to the theme of the quest that the human, animal, real and symbolic subject carries out within and beyond itself.
During a folkloric celebration in Campania a man disguised as a woman, a character of the carnival named “the Zeza” mimes giving birth, while the banda plays and the onlookers shout encouragements. In the 1970s, Marialba Russo’s attention was mainly focused on religious representations and folk festivals in central and southern Italy.
This photograph captures the apex of a very ancient ritual still performed in the 1970s in Campania, during which a naked adolescent was passed, symbolically reborn through a tree trunk cut in the form of a vagina. The rite of passage was officiated by a woman that acts as a midwife, assisted by two men. In those years Marialba Russo’s attention was mainly focused on religious representations and folk festivals in central and southern Italy.
This portrait of a young participant in the pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of the Abbey of Montevergine was taken In the 1970s. At the time Marialba Russo’s attention was mainly focused on religious representations and folk festivals in central and southern Italy.
MARIALBA RUSSO begins to photograph in the 60s, pointing her camera on themes of social investigation of Southern Italy. She photographed at length the living conditions, the religious rites and folk festivals, creating images that restore the spirit and ancient dignity of the South in works such as Immagini della Madonna dell’Arco (1973) and Gli eretici dell’Assunta (1974). Over the years she developed a conceptual approach which led her to realise the series Il parto, presented at “Venezia ‘79. La fotografia”. She conceives the photo book series “I Quaderni dello sguardo”, and publishes the photo series Al ristorante il 29 settembre 1974 and Giornale Spray; her experimentations with the photographic language result in Della serie delle centotrenta figure di spalle (1981); 1929 Ritratto di mio padre e mia madre (1982). From the 90s she explores the landscape in a visionary manner in the cycles l’Incanto, Fasti Moderni-il disordine del tempo (1993); Epifanie (1997); Ritratto di me (1999). *She was born in Giugliano in 1947, she lives and works in Rome.