RICHARD DE TSCHARNER Il canto della terra: un poema fotografico

Palazzo del Popolo / Museo Pinacoteca di Todi / Torcularium, Todi June, 12 - August 22, 2021

From 12 June to 22 August 2021, the three venues of the Sala delle Pietre and the Museo Pinacoteca in Palazzo del Popolo and of the Torcularium in the Lucrezie complex in Todi (Perugia) are set to host the exhibition of Richard de Tscharner (Bern, 1947), one of the world's most admired landscape photographers. Entitled The Song of the Earth. A photographic poem, curated by William A. Ewing and organised by PHOTODI, the cultural association chaired by Mario Santoro, in partnership with the Todi Museo Pinacoteca, with the patronage of the Municipality of Todi, which has provided its most prestigious exhibition venues, the exhibition presents 59 photographs that explore the Swiss photographer's creative universe. Drawing his inspiration from such great models as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, Richard de Tscharner has spent over twenty years travelling and working in more than 22 countries, from India to Algeria, from Iceland to Peru, from Italy to the United States, from Vietnam to Ethiopia and more besides, often reaching extremely remote and inaccessible places and bringing back his landscape shots, all strictly in black and white, according to Robert Frank the true colours of photography. Adopting an approach to photography that is exquisitely philosophical and meditative, Richard de Tscharner takes a special interest in the effects that geological transformations have had on the ecosystem, in the traces left by geological forces, such as the phenomenon of the erosion of rocks or that of the wind on the sands of the desert, which in the course of time have given our planet such diverse, magical surfaces. Reflecting his passionate interest in classical music, in particular Gustav Mahler, de Tscharner decided to construct the Todi exhibition as a symphonic poem, comprising three movements, one in each of the exhibition's venues. Visitors to the Sala delle Pietre will find panoramic landscape shots on one wall, counterbalanced by others illustrating details of the textures created by nature on the surfaces of rocks, of water and of wood. In the Museo Pinacoteca, the precious home of ancient art, de Tscharner proposes a series of photographs of the ruins left by ancient peoples, a reminder of our civilisation's evanescence when compared to the longue durée of the Earth. Lastly, the section in the Torcularium focuses on the presence of humanity in the world's remotest spots, when people have preserved a more intimate relationship with the Earth than the majority of contemporary metropolitan dwellers..