Bianco papa
As part of the sixth edition of Fotografia Europea 2011, the initiative documented, through one hundred photographs, the changing papal iconography from the capture of Porta Pia to the present day. A long banner with photos from the Treccani repertory on the popes staged a photographic timeline that accompanied the visitor through the famous moments that have marked the history of the papacy.
The exhibition was completed by screenings of cult audio-visual clips preserved in the archives of the Teche Rai and Istituto Luce regarding the pontiff; in collaboration with Raitre, five documentaries made by «La Grande storia in prima serata» on Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II were shown, thus providing the visitor with the historical framework for the proposed visual itinerary.
In the exhibition path, the installation tredicimaggiottantuno presented a white Fiat Campagnola – similar to the Popemobile in which John Paul II was travelling on the day of the attack – which acted as a screen for the images of the terrorist act and the television news of the time.
The minutes before and after 5:19 p.m. on 13 May 1981 encapsulate and suggest a multitude of different interpretations, all interconnected in a very intricate tree but depending, in any case, on the shots that seriously wounded John Paul II during the tour of the square that preceded the Wednesday general audience.
Voids and full sounds of the video installations alternated with an editing of the audio and radio recordings of that afternoon in 1981.
