Massimo Listri | Fine Art Asia 2021

Listri is the photographer who invented beauty. Vittorio Sgarbi declared this when underlining how Listri’s vision educates the observer’s eye to apprehend all that one might risk not seeing behind the actual image as well; in particular, the harmonious volumes of the rooms that he elegantly portrays by extending the field of vision to its furthest limit. Giovanni Pallanti declares Listri a hero of beauty, recalling how his work transforms reality with a highly imaginative touch that is so incisive that it transcends photography into a truly creative art, and that the originality of this role lies in the desire to make the human world, which is so often grey, worn-out and tired, beautiful.

It is in this sense that the omission of any complementary presence in Listri’s works, especially of human presence, is decisive. Nothing must intervene to alter the final outcome of his interpretation; nothing can take precedence over fully revealing the beautiful image. Cesare Cunaccia underlines this, when he reminds us that for the Florentine artistic photographer the removal of the human figure is fundamental, to prevent the figure, with its inherent peculiarities of expression and character, from interfering with the scene.

To achieve his objective of photographing absolute beauty, Listri entrusts himself to his artistic instinct, activating a creative process based on a precise selection of the spaces to photograph and on an accurate and formal composition of the photograph; thus resulting in a rigorous choice in the point of view, depth of perspective and geometry that, as Giorgio Antei notes, resemble authentic rhymes for their equilibrium and symmetry. Finally, light is also an essential aspect, fundamental to capturing each and every detail. Natural light is always deliberately used during the most suited hours of the day. These are all elements of utmost importance which our photographer draws from the great masters of painting, having for many years trained his eye on the work of masters such as Piero della Francesca, Caravaggio and Vermeer.

Although seemingly missing from the scenes that are photographed, humans equally leave one to feel their presence through those interiors which are the finest and most vital trace of their having been present, the most fruitful sign of their existence, the supreme witness of their art and culture. It is in this sense that Listri’s images, as he himself declares, can be considered an exemplification of the metaphysical poetry of the presence-absence and that despite the omission of the individual figure, the observer of the photographs has the feeling of being in the presence of a soul, of sensing a human existence.

Nevertheless, Massimo Listri’s photographs of spaces, rather than being witnesses to the marginality, incoherence and chaos that have taken over the world with devastating changes – whether social, architectural or in the landscape – due to the transition to the post-industrial era, offer an aesthetic solution that in the substantial and systematic search for beauty, wants to curb and exorcise that chaotic fragmentation. Listri takes beautiful photos in beautiful locations, thus beauty is doubled and Camillo Langone confirms this when giving Listri the title of most elegant photographer in Italy.

Indeed, Langone’s statement appears in our case, to be particularly pertinent.

These exhibited photos reveal a truly privileged setting for the artistic photograph, for Massimo Listri’s artistic research they are an even more natural point of reference. Here grace, elegance, harmony, equilibrium and beauty fill the worlds depicted; the spectator who looks at these photographs will find the silent tranquillity that Listri recognizes as the essence of his work, as a true therapy for the soul; a condition that only the fortunate visitor can experience in a salutary and solitary visit.