Bio
Gian
Paolo Minelli is a photographer with a profound interest in technique
and social issues. This brings to the photo field an exceptional
language that moves comfortably in these two worlds oftenly
considered incompatible. His
talent has made this possible: all his oeuvre point to his interest
in contemporary reality and its marks in architecture in a natural,
almost organic manner. Urban corners, parking lots, low-income
housing, unfinished buildings: he uses great economy of means to
transform seemingly uncomplicated takes and objects into deeply
resonant carriers of meaning where both, aesthetic and political
aspects merge. He often works in series of connected, yet autonomous
works, in which a vivid dialogue is established between repetition
and variation, between geometry and textures.
His practice unfolds in public space and has incorporated human
figures to his photos, engaging inhabitants from marginal areas of
the metropolis. He has been working at Galpon Piedra Buena Arte in
Villa Lugano, one of the poorest suburbs in Buenos Aires,
where the combination of art and solidarity becomes
explicit. From this work he has printed the book Piedra
Buena-Zona Sur (2001-2006) and directed a film screened at several
international Festivals.
Gian
Paolo Minelli (b. 1968, Geneva, Switzerland) has taken his bright
documental insight to numerous venues around the world. His
photographs have been seen in more than 75 collective exhibitions all
over the world and he has had exhibitions in many cities: Berne,
Chiasso, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Miami, Lugano, Asuncion, Bellizona
and Geneva. Some
of the works featured at Dot Fiftyone Gallery have been recently
shown at The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in the exhibition
“Photography in Argentina (1850-2010): Contradiction and
Continuity,” curated by Judith Keller and Idurre Alonso.
