Hervé Guibert: This and More

9.3. – 21.3.2023
Macro – Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome

Hervé Guibert: This and More, curated by Anthony Huberman has been produced in collaboration with CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco, an exhibition featuring a selection of photographs by the French writer, journalist and photographer Hervé Guibert (1955-1991). While the photographic work of Guibert is generally associated with portraiture, in this case the exhibition explores a body of works in which he instead captures the absence of the physical body: the images do not contain faces, but inanimate objects, interiors and domestic spaces laden with memories and emotions that suggest the presence of people behind the scenes. 
In Guibert’s view, a good photograph is not necessarily one that makes a person or a place visible, but one that is “faithful to the memory of my emotion”. Laconic and reserved, the photographs shown in the exhibition offer an approach to the portrait in which what counts is what is lacking in the picture: charged with feelings of love but also traumatic aspects, these interiors prompt us to imagine the people who lived inside them. The works lay bare the most intimate aspects of the artist, while at the same time conserving the detachment of private moments in which the protagonists are kept secluded or tragically distant, outside the framing of the image. Rather than seeking an objective sense of truth, the exhibition underscores everything that is subjective and invisible in a photograph, in which memories, anecdotes and absences are layered.
Very well-known in France, where his work contributed to raise public awareness on the theme of AIDS, Guibert had a special relationship with Italy. A lover of the cinema of Pasolini, Fellini and Antonioni, he spent long periods of time on the island of Elba, where he wrote many texts during the course of his life. He also lived in Rome, from 1987 to 1989 in residence at Villa Medici, after which he extended his stay into the following year. 
The exhibition will travel to the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (9 June – 20 August, 2023).   

Special thanks to Christine Guibert and to Françoise Morin, Les Douches la Galerie, as well as Photi Giovanis at Callicoon Fine Arts. 

Curator: Anthony Huberman
Curatorial Coordinator: Matteo Binci
Production Coordinator: Giulia Caruso
Production Assistant: Eloisa Magiera
Head of Press Office and Communication: Maddalena Bonicelli
Digital Content Editor: Nicoletta Graziano
Social Media Manager: Elena Fortunati
Web Manager / Digital Marketing: Andrea Pergola
Graphic Designer: Marco Campardo, Olivia Lynk
Art Handlers: Carlo Giannone, Fabio Pennacchia, Matteo Pompili