The artist

Giuliana Laportella

Photographer and visual artist. A body of work on the relationship between word and image, between the arts and their languages.

Portrait of Giuliana Laportella, photographer and visual artist

Giuliana Laportella

A Roman artist, she trained in stage design at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and worked in cinema, television and theatre as a set and costume designer. In 1999 she received the award for best stage design and costumes at the 3rd National Festival of Emerging Playwriting, promoted by the City of Rome.

Photography gradually took on a primary expressive role. After a number of group shows with accompanying publications issued by La Camera Verde, in 2004 she presented her first solo exhibition, Terra di Nessuno, with a text by Simona Turco. In 2006 she worked on a project on Kafka's Prague, which led the following year to K.: Lettera non scritta, a photographic book with an introduction by the poet Vito Riviello.

It was through this work that literary material entered her photographic practice for good, opening a line of research into the contamination between the arts and the multidisciplinarity of expressive forms.

From 2006 to 2009 she worked with the poet Vito Riviello. Their collaboration gave rise in 2007 to the Fotofonemi, and from these to the photo-poetic book Paesaggi di Passaggio: Fotofonemi by Giuliana Laportella, translated by Vito Riviello, presented by Vincenzo Mollica on Rai 1's cultural programme. It is a work on correspondences, in which the poet's structure entrusts itself to the photographer's image, and the photographer entrusts herself to the poet's line.

From 2009 she introduced video as a medium, producing "video-photographic" installations that bring analogue photography into contact with digital means: the digital serves to document the chemical and physical processes of the darkroom.

From 2010, after Riviello's death, she has directed the art series Fotofonemi (Eccipienti Creativi) for the Roman publisher Onyx: an editorial and multimedia project devoted to the relationship between word, sound and photographic image, and to methods of translation between languages. Her work has been presented in institutional venues including the MAXXI in Rome, the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, the RUFA Academy and the Mario Giacomelli Museum in Senigallia.

In 2017 she presented the solo exhibition Penelope è in viaggio, perché restare non ha dove in Como, curated by Chiara Milani. In 2019 she published the plaquette Punctum in/contra punctum, presented in Lugano with a critical contribution by the poet Vincenzo Guerracino.

Solo exhibitions

2017
Penelope è in viaggio, perché restare non ha dove · The Art Company, Como Curated by Chiara Milani, presented by Lorenzo Morandotti
2013
Galleria Studio Vigato, Milan · Galerie Satellite, Paris
2008–09
Paesaggi di Passaggio · Galleria lo Studio.Ra, Rome
2007–08
Fotofonemi · Sala Borromini, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Rome Presented by the director and poet Cetta Petrollo Pagliarani
2007
K.: Lettera non scritta · Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina, Sapienza University, Rome
2004
Terra di Nessuno · La Camera Verde, Rome Introductory text by Simona Turco

Group exhibitions and festivals

2017
Aliquid · Galleria Gino Monti, Ancona
2016
Carte Ritrovate · Galleria Weber & Weber, Turin
2014
Talks and seminars on landscape · Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan
2013
Seminar on contemporary photography · Mario Giacomelli Museum, Senigallia Contribution on poetry and image
2010
Artist's Book Biennial, Cassino With the co-produced works L'avandietro and Dadascalie, together with Vito Riviello
2004–06
Group exhibitions with accompanying publications · La Camera Verde, Rome

Video, installations and performance

2023
Il nero e l'oro di Roma · festival organised by John Cabot University, Rome Text by Mariella De Santis, video by Giuliana Laportella; curated by Cristiana Panella
2015
Oltre il Po · Decadrage festival, Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan
2014
Tra i Paesaggi di Passaggio · Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan Video drawn from the theatre piece Vito Riviello tra i Paesaggi di Passaggio
2014
Sound installation for the poets Fabiano Alborghetti and Pietro Berra · Parolario festival, Como And the installation of the video In cerca di veri indugi in the bunker
2013
Vito Riviello tra i paesaggi di passaggio · Metateatro, Rome Intermedial performance: video and music in a stage space
2013
14 dic 2010 · MAXXI, National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome With Riverberi; speakers Bruno Corà, Raffaella Perna and the poet Lamberto Pignotti
2011
re/furtiva · XD 01. User Experience Designer, Milan Video installation: photography and poetry
2010
Trens/gene · Mediamorfosi 2.0. Contributi alle lingue dell'arterità, Act_01 festival · SudLab contemporary art space, Naples Video installation; curated by Gabriele Perretta
2009
Notturno: Artifictio · Bovarchè festival, Bova Sound installation

Curatorial and editorial work

since 2010
Director of the art series Fotofonemi (Eccipienti Creativi), Onyx, Rome An editorial and multimedia project on the relationship between word, sound and photographic image
2011–12
Fotofonemi (Eccipienti Creativi): Correspondances · RUFA Academy of Fine Arts and Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan A series of talks on word/image translation; speakers Gabriele Perretta, Marcello Carlino, Francesco Muzzioli, Aldo Mastropasqua
2010–13
Editor and series director for literary, poetry and non-fiction publishing and design projects Under the pen name Giovanna Castalia she edited the poetry and fiction series Notes for Onyx, Rome
2007
I Confrontanei · Biblioteca Alessandrina, Sapienza University, Rome A series of encounters on the multidisciplinarity of the arts, curated with Vito Riviello

Publications

2023
Allegro affettuoso · Elio Pecora, art micro-plaquette, FusibiliaLibri With a photograph by Giuliana Laportella and a critical aphorism by Ugo Magnanti; Collezione Quattordici Versi series
2019
Punctum in/contra punctum · texts by Lorenzo Morandotti, Chiara Milani and Giuliana Laportella Ed. La pasticceria del pesce, by Claudio Granaroli
2016
Il capolavoro ritrovato. Segni, Impressioni e Voci per Brera · Brera Academy of Fine Arts A section with 10 images and a theoretical text; edited by G. Perretta, Acrome series, Ed. Saladino
2012
Riverberi · texts by Gabriele Perretta, Fotofonòmetrie by Giuliana Laportella Fotofonemi (Eccipienti Creativi) series, Onyx, Rome
2011
Paesaggi di Passaggio, second edition · Fotofonemi (Eccipienti Creativi) series Also translated into French. Monographic articles in the magazines Artantis and Satura; publications on the site Le Reti di Dedalus
2010
Muri d'amore · Marco Palladini, with seven works by Giuliana Laportella, Edizioni Signum, Bergamo And Omaggio a Emilio Villa, Ed. La Camera Verde, Rome
2009
Libro dell'immagine, volume VI · Ed. La Camera Verde, Rome With Posti a Sedere. In the same year, Locandina d'artista
2008
Paesaggi di Passaggio: Fotofonemi by Giuliana Laportella, translated by Vito Riviello · Edizioni Onyx, Rome Eighteen Fotofonemi. Featured on the culture pages of Corriere della Sera and presented by Vincenzo Mollica on Rai 1
2008
Doppio Scatto · Vito Riviello, with seven works by Giuliana Laportella, Edizioni Signum, Bergamo In the same year: Scala Condominiale, cover image for Vito Riviello's poetry book, Lieto Colle Editore, Como; monographic article in the magazine Decanter
2007
K.: Lettera non scritta · a photographic and literary homage to Franz Kafka Monograph, Ed. La Camera Verde, Rome, with an introduction by Vito Riviello
2006
Libro dell'immagine, volume V · Ed. La Camera Verde, Rome With La Praga di Kafka and In Sagrestia. In the same year: Ciccio Cornacchia, artist's postcards with a text by Vito Riviello; L'Urna Cineraria d'Artista; Il Libriccino volume II, La Camera Verde / L'Atelier AE, Paris–Rome; In Memoriam, photographic diptych
2005
Una Rosa è Una Rosa: Omaggio a Giuni Russo · Ed. La Camera Verde, Rome
2004
Libro dell'immagine, volumes III and IV · Ed. La Camera Verde, Rome With Terra di Nessuno and In camera. Monograph in the theatre and cinema magazine Prove Aperte, Rome

Awards

1999
Award for best stage design and costumes · 3rd National Festival of Emerging Playwriting Promoted by the Youth Policy Department of the City of Rome

Contact

For press enquiries, an extended biography, high-resolution material or information about the works. Critical readings of the work are collected on the Critical texts page.

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