Mario Testino: A Beautiful World
In “A Beautiful World", Mario Testino offers a captivating exploration of diverse cultures and traditions, capturing emblematic imagery that delves into the rich tapestry of communities worldwide.
"Mario Testino: Beautiful World" Exhibition
May 25th - August 25th , 2024.
Palazzo Bonaparte, Piazza Venezia 5, Rome - Italy.
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Over the last seven years Mario Testino has visited around thirty different countries to create the more than 70 large-format photographs assembled at Palazzo Bonparte for the first time. The “A Beautiful World” exhibition constitutes a fascinating departure from his work as one of the greatest fashion photographers of his generation, focussing on portraits of a spectacular diversity of traditional and innovative dress and costume, worn with pride by the people who continue to preserve and evolve the traditions that created them.
Masked Ba-Pende Men in Munganji Wa Weso costume
Democratic Republic of the Congo 2023
A Woman of the Himba
Otjahorovara Kunene Region North-West Namibia 2022
Tokyo, 2018
Children of the Kara
Duss Omo Valley Ethiopia 2019
A Sahrawi
Dakhla Morocco 2019
A Woman of the Akha
Eastern Shan State Myanmar 2018
A Man in costume as El Diablo Blanco de Rabinal
A White Devil from the dance of Moros y Cristianos
Antigua Guatemala 2023
Men of the Maasai
Mbirikani Community
Chyulu Hills Kenya 2023
A Woman of the Akhe
Donna degli Akhe
Eastern Shan State Myanmar 2018
A Woman of the Karakalpak
Republic of Karakalpakstan Uzbekistan 2023
Three Women of the Thari
Tharparkar Pakistan 2024
A Woman of Ayacucho dressed for Holy Week
Huamanga Peru 2022
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ABOUT A BEAUTIFUL WORLD
A Beautiful World is an exciting quest for beauty and a tribute to life in which Mario Testino’s lens turn towards tradition and the origin and distinctions of belonging.
In 2007, Mario Testino set out to photograph traditional Peruvian costumes in the city of Cusco, in his native Peru, and thus discovered an interest that would become his most ambitious project: A Beautiful World. A legacy in the form of an archive, the series gathers the most astonishing beauty the contemporary world has to offer, under the gaze of one of the most influential photographers of recent times.
World-renowned for his amazing ability to capture movement and spontaneity, Mario Testino is equally talented when focused on that which remains unchanged, capturing with reverence traditions of decades and centuries, as well as the transgressions that dare challenge them. A Beautiful World is a living and evolving record of a variety of subjects, rituals and geographies that highlights our complexities while bringing us together; and a faithful portrait of its author: an artist infatuated with life.
A Beautiful World is Testino's extraordinarily magical and nuanced navigation of the complexities and contrasts of our many ways of belonging: individuality and conformity, community, rituals, ideas of self. Symbols and systems of belief.
“In my travels, I realised that when a country loses the bond between its history and its traditional dress something truly precious is lost” – Mario Testino
Influenced by photography greats like Cecil Beaton and Richard Avendon, even when making a conscious effort to channel artists like Peruvian master Martín Chambi, Testino's work remains his own. He is a photographer difficult to categorize, deeply instinctive, as versatile and varied as his interests. From Peru to India, from Mongolia to Spain, from Kenya to Japan, Testino is travelling the world, and in this age of digitalization and immediacy, A Beautiful World gives us a chance to wonder and dream.
A Beautiful World supports The Great Balance's mission by fostering cultural heritage understanding. Find out more about The Great Balance here.
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