Art Basel Miami

For its second participation, Polka Galerie, in collaboration with the artist, will be presenting an unprecedented solo-show, uniting for the very first time all the vintage prints used by Franco Fontana in 1978 to constitute this fundamental body of work, which has gone on to influence generations of photographers. The exhibited vintage prints will come straight from the archives of this great master of Italian photography, seeing the light of day for the very first time since their printing in 1978.

The 1978 publication of Franco Fontana’s book Skyline, published by Luigi Ghirri’s « Punto e virgola » editions, marked the culmination of a process of artistic research begun by the artist at the dawn of the 1960s. This major work marked a historic turning point in the photographic study of landscape through its abstract and radical approach to the genre. Taut horizon lines suspended between earth and sky, illuminated in a subtle, dissonant color scheme, form an unexpected visual synthesis between artist and medium. The work combines the chromatic perception of a painter-turned-photographer with the incredible capacity of the photographic medium, initially invented to transcend painting, to disclose the hidden geometry of nature, this visual world that often escapes us.