Paolo Simonazzi
MANTUA, CUBA
4 September - 7 November 2017
Mantua, Cuba (2015) is a photographic project created by Paolo Simonazzi which sees, as a place of investigation, a small town on the edge of the island of Cuba. Legend has it, but some similarities and references with reality exist, that foundation of Mantua had been the work of a group of Italian sailors, many of them Genoese or at least Ligurian, who survived the sinking of a brig that had precisely this name. Simonazzi, with the support of the writer Davide Barilli, told the feeling of forgetfulness made of symbols, intimate totems, house interiors, photographs, posters, buildings
abandoned. In a historical moment in which Cuba is undergoing a change, Mantua, Cuba, can also be read as a representation of a legend which, surviving, turns into a myth.
Biographical notes
Paolo Simonazzi was born in Reggio Emilia in 1961. He divides his life between his activity as a doctor and that of a photographer, to which he devotes himself with passion.
The Mantua project, Cuba (Greta, 2016) with exhibitions in Parma and Havana in autumn 2016,
it is a sentimental research that has a provincial town on the border as its place of investigation
of the island of Cuba.
In spring 2016 he exhibited at the Maramotti Collection, within the 11th edition of
European Photography festival, dedicated to the Via Emilia.
The project he proposes, So near, so far, is an original reinterpretation of his main projects
who look to their homeland with a complicit, affectionate and ironic look at
same time.
In 2015 he presented the unpublished project in Turin, on the occasion of The Other Art Fair, Turin
Icons of Liscio, related to the icons of ballroom dancing in Emilia-Romagna.
In 2015 he exhibited in Rimini (Museum of the City) Things rediscovered, an exhibition created and presented in
2014 for the IX edition of Fotografia Europea: a visionary journey inspired by the literary texts of
Ermanno Cavazzoni and Raffaello Baldini (Marsilio, 2014).
The Bell'Italia project (Silvana Editoriale, 2014), previewed at Fotografia Europea
2011, he subsequently moved to Sydney, Melbourne (2012), Tokyo (2014), Moscow (2016).
From 2006 to 2010 he dedicated himself to Mondo Piccolo, a work on the rediscovery of the lands dear to
Guareschi, places of the soul rather than of geography (Umberto Allemandi, 2010), with stages in
various Italian cities.
Between the Via Emilia and the West (Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2007) is the title of the exhibition on display at Villa
delle Rose - MAMbo, Bologna (2007), and to follow in other Italian and foreign locations including New
York and San Francisco.
In 2006 he approached the theme of social unease with the project La casa degli angeli, presented
at the 1st edition of Fotografia Europea and subsequently at the 6th edition of FotoGrafia -
International Festival of Rome (2007).
Circo Bidone, one of his first photographic projects, tells of a small surviving circus
at the time of multimedia and special effects (Zoolibri, 2003).