Archiving a Mafia war
They are by turns gruesome, haunting and, often, achingly poetic. As a collective, the photographs offer an unflinching pictorial tapestry of recent Sicilian history — its people, its poverty and, above all, its decades-long forced dalliance with the Mafia, or Cosa Nostra.
What may have been lost in the gradual transition of these black-and-white images from the front pages of Palermo’s L’Ora to a host of museums is that they were shot by Letizia Battaglia, a Sicilian woman — remarkable in itself — during one of the bloodiest crime sprees in Italy’s recent history.
Their power lies in their immediacy. As Mafia rivals waged a cruel and pitiless campaign for control of the island beginning in the late 1970s, Battaglia was unflinchingly present, unwilling to look away.
“Sometimes I look at my photos and say, ‘I was in there.’ Three people murdered. I look at them and think, ‘What a horror, three people murdered,’ ” Battaglia said recently in her Palermo apartment. There, large-format prints of several photographs — including one of a triple homicide — leaned against a couch, waiting to be shipped to yet another exhibit. “I can’t accept that anymore,” she said, genuine sorrow in her voice.
In years when the word Mafia was barely whispered in public, Battaglia, now 82, was chronicling its brutal activities for all to witness. In 1979, she boldly set up oversize photographs of Mafia victims in the main square of Corleone, the domain of Sicily’s most notorious Mafia clan. She was aware of the potential consequences.
“I did exhibits against the Mafia, in Palermo, on the streets, in Corleone. I was afraid,” she conceded. “There, I said it, I was afraid. It was true.”
But fear did not stop her. Nor did the threats she received. “At the time, I was offered a security detail, but I refused it because I would have lost my freedom,” she said. “It was too important. I felt the duty to continue.”
Today, her images have become a part of Italy’s cultural heritage. They have transcended their journalistic origins to reappear in museum exhibitions as well as deluxe art books. They are valued both as historical points of reference and as deeply moving — or outright shocking — slices of Sicilian life captured by an especially keen-eyed observer.
“Letizia’s story is the story of our country, secured in strong images loaded with tension, loaded with pain and full of poetry,” said Margherita Guccione, who recently curated a retrospective of Battaglia’s photos at Italy’s national museum for contemporary art. “I never thought of myself as an artist, and I am still astonished to enter a museum and see my work,” Battaglia said.
“When I took the photos, no one said to me, ‘Brava,’ no one,” she said. She had just been doing her job, no small achievement for a Sicilian woman working in a predominantly male world.
Battaglia has lately focused her abundant energies on opening Palermo’s first museum dedicated to photography, the Centro Internazionale della Fotografia.
“I still have lots of things to do, I feel a strength inside that I didn’t feel when I was 20, 30 or 40,” she said. “Maybe I feel strong because today I am my own master.”