Very detailed review of the exhibition Ron Galella: the greatest photographer of the stars:
by Giuseppe Mazzocco of Centralmente.com Magazine from Avezzano (AQ) .
<<< The over 180 photos in the exhibition (all accompanied by precious captions) show, on the one hand, the power of the image and, on the other, an unusual but formidable way of penetrating memories and turning on the spotlights on characters of yesterday that you carry inside, but which, without the provocation of the paparazzi's work, you would never have brought back to today.
The nostalgia that ignites the exhibition on Ron Galella brings back (especially in those who are more advanced in years) youthful eras full of turmoil, having as witnesses those stars who are immortalized "without veils". The photos, which the careful direction of the exhibition has coordinated in a precise thematic journey, remind you that a celebrity has existed through an image, which portrays it in an absolutely occasional, ordinary, not pre-established, banally everyday way!
Ron Galella loved to look the subject of his photographic "incursion" in the eyes and shoot before he "hid" behind a circumstantial smile: he stole a moment of real daily life, with close-ups that put you in direct contact with the character . In order to have time to shoot without warning, he had devised a trick: to block, with adhesive tape, the lenses of the cameras to be used, at a prearranged distance and with a fixed aperture. He approached the subject who, unaware of the "attack", was not ready to be filmed and, while asking to be able to photograph him, snapped, snapped, snapped (a rule that good paparazzi must never forget), waiting for the subject to come out from the habitual expression, pass to that of surprise and put on the mask of the pose!
His contact with the subject to be photographed has always taken place outside of any scheme and from the spotlights of a set, for this reason the shots bring back wonder, amazement, boredom, daily habits, and have been disseminated by newspapers such as Time, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Vanity Fair, People, The New York Times, Life and on display in important museums such as the MOMA in New York and San Francisco, the Tate Modern in London, the Helmut Newton Museum in Berlin and La Fabrica in Madrid.>>
Full article on https://www.centralmente.com/2022/11/20/un-cucito-dautore-copy/