PRESS RELEASE
TSUNAMI
Gary Knight / Antonin Kratochvil / Joachim Ladefoged / James
Nachtwey John Stanmeyer.
In collaboration with Grazia Neri and de.MO
de.MO founder Giorgio Baravalle will be at the opening
opening Wednesday 7th September 2005
from 19:00 to 21:00
cocktail from 19:00
exhibition from 8th to 25th September 2005
Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday 10:30 – 19:30
Wednesday and Thursday 10:30 – 21:00
Monday 15:30 – 19:30
Galleria Carla Sozzani
Corso Como 10 - Milan
Tel. 02.653531 - fax. 02.29004080
press@galleriacarlasozzani.org
www.galleriacarlasozzani.org
In spite of the fact that we live in such a seismically unstable world, people
still choose to live in high risk places, justifying their decision by citing the
beauty and fertility of the land. They know that the disaster could be
repeated, but they do not leave, and they will still be there when it happens
again. Why? Because man wants to live on the edges, aware of the fact that
living is itself risky somehow. And always remembering that this earth has a
geological equilibrium that could change at any time.
Galleria Carla Sozzani with Grazia Neri and de.MO present the book Tsunami: a
document of devastation and a selection of pictures in a photography exhibition
presenting seven of the forty-four photographs contained in the book.
Tsunami is a document testifying to the destruction caused by one of the worst
natural disasters in history. The severity and enormity of the event inspired de.MO
(a publisher which has won numerous awards based in Millbrook, NY) to choose a
large format for the book (64x49cm).
Photographers Gary Knight, Antonin Kratochvil, Joachim Ladefoged, James
Nachtwey and John Stanmeyer, of VII Photo Agency, represented exclusively by
Grazia Neri in Italy, captured the devastation that wiped away whole villages and
changed the face of the countries rimming the Indian Ocean.
The pictures show the terrible natural and human impact of an event which caused
the death of 250,000 people.
Profits from sales of the book will go to the non-profit association Doctors of the
World.
de.MO
de.MO stands for “ Design.Method of Operation” and is a multi-faceted graphics
company and publisher which has won international design and publishing awards.
The company is concerned with a variety of projects including books, websites,
graphics, logos, packaging, brochures, DVDs and branding and represents
numerous multinational clients.
de.MO was founded in 1997 by Giorgio Baravalle and his wife Elizabeth, a graphic
designer from San Francisco, and consists of a small team of young designers.
As a publisher de.MO has produced books – from conception to design – with
some of the world’s most important photographers: James Nachtwey, Ron Haviv,
Antonin Kratochvil, Christopher Anderson, Elliott Erwitt and Paul Fusco.
de.MO has received awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Art
Director’s Club in NY, the Photo District News and POYi (Picture of the Year
International Competition, best book of the year in 2004)
Giorgio Baravalle
Giorgio Baravalle: born in Turin in 1967, he lived in Italy until 1987, when he went
to San Francisco to take a degree in Graphic Design at the California College of
Arts and Crafts. He founded de.MO in Milan with his wife Elizabeth, a San
Francisco graphic designer. In 2000 the couple moved to Millbrook.
Biographical notes
Gary Knight
Born in England in 1964, Knight started working as a photographer in Southeast
Asia and Indochina in the mid-80s. In January 1993 he went to the former
Yugoslavia. His primary concerns are human rights issues, crime and justice. His
work has been published in prominent magazines all over the world. He has
written several essays on journalism and photography and is a founding member
and president of the VII Photo Agency, established in September 2001.
Antonin Kratochvil
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1947, Kratochvil graduated from the Gerrit Rietveltd Art
Academy with a degree in photography.
His work has appeared in numerous magazines and publications including
“Traveler”, “Detour”, “Mother Jones”, “Natural History”, “Newsweek”, “New York
Times”, “Smithsonian”, “Time”, the United Nations magazine “Choices” and the
Mother Jones International Fund for Photography, USA.
In September 2001 he became a founding member of VII Photo Agency.
Joachim Ladefoged
Born in Denmark in 1970, Ladefoged dreamed of becoming a professional
footballer until he began to suffer from rheumatism. In 1991 he started out as an
apprentice photographer with a small local newspaper in Denmark, and in 1995 he
started working full-time as a photographer for the national newspaper Politiken.
In 1998 he became a freelance photographer and worked as Scandinavian
correspondent for Network Photographers. He was a candidate for Magnum from
2000 to 2002, and from 2002 to 2003 he was a member of the agency VU. He has
worked in more than 25 different countries, and his photographs have been
published in the world’s most important magazines and newspapers, including
MARE, New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, TIME, US News & World Report,
Liberation, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Geo and the French edition of National
Geographic.
In 2000 he published his book Albanians documenting the turbulent life of the
Albanians between 1997 and 1999. His photographs have won a number of
awards, including the first prize in the World Press Photo Awards, the Eissie award
presented by LIFE magazine, the Picture of the Year award in Denmark and the
Visa D’Or in Perpignan. He was the first Dane to win an award for a journalism
feature in the World Press and he made a decisive contribution to the rise of a new
generation of photojournalism in Denmark. He has been a member of VII Photo
Agency since January 2004. Ladefoged lives in Denmark.
James Nachtwey
James Nachtwey was born in the United States in 1948. He grew up in
Massachusetts and studied Art History and Political Sciences at Dartmouth
College (1966-70). He decided to become a photoreporter after seeing images of
the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement in America. He worked in the
merchant navy as an apprentice head reporter and truck driver while teaching
himself photography.
In 1976 Nachtwey started working as a photographer for a newspaper in New
Mexico. In 1980 he moved to New York to start his career working as a freelance
photographer for a newspaper. His first assignment abroad was a feature on the
civil war in Northern Ireland in 1981, at the time of the IRA hunger strikes.
Since then Nachtwey has worked exclusively on documenting wars, conflicts and
social issues. His vast repertoire of photographs covers four continents.
Nachtwey has been a contract photographer for Time since 1984. He worked in
association with the Black Star between 1980 and 1985 and was a member of
Magnum from 1986 to 2001. He is a member of the Royal Photographic Society
and received an honorary degree in the Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of
Arts. He became a founding member of VII Photo Agency in September 2001.
John Stanmeyer
John Stanmeyer was born in the United States in 1964. In the early ’80s he worked
as a fashion photographer, living in Milan and working with “Interview”, “Vanity”
and “Harper’s Bazaar”. He moved to Madrid in 1987 and to Florida in 1989. He
photographed the civil war in Sudan in the early ‘90s, conflicts in Eastern Europe
and the political and economic struggles in Haiti. He worked with Saba between
1996 and 2000.
Stanmeyer is a founding member and the current president of VII Photo Agency.
He has been a “Time” contract photographer since 1998.