For the first time in Germany, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg is showing a comprehensive exhibition of Italian photographer Paolo Pellegrin's impressively direct, but also poetic and sometimes surreal photographs and projections of global nature analysis.
A gigantic iceberg, glowing lava, barren landscapes, mighty vegetation, boundless flocks of birds and enraptured animal worlds - Paolo Pellegrin's (*1964) photographic exploration of the Anthropocene is a visually stunning journey into the unknown. From Iceland to Greenland, from Sicily to South Tyrol and from Namibia to Costa Rica, he spent several years investigating the state of nature. The roots of this project lie in a research trip to Antarctica, which Pellegrin undertook in 2017 together with a NASA group.
Paolo Pellegrin, Disko Bay, Ilulissat, GREENLAND, 2021 © Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos
Winner of ten World Press Photo Awards, various Photographer of the Year Awards, the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award and many other honors, Paolo Pellegrin is one of the most famous documentary and war photographers of our time. His photographs are not only impressive for their documentary value, but also for their aesthetic power. They are more than pure reportage photography, as he has long since abandoned sharpness in favor of a broad spectrum of light and shadow. His latest nature photographs, which are based on the four elements, are also motivated by a personal quest: "Yes, of course it's about landscapes and nature, but I have to transform them. [...] I'm looking for the sublime." Whether in color or in black and white, Paolo Pellegrin exposes the structures and patterns, the surfaces, the enormous power but also the vulnerability of our planet.
Paolo Pellegrin, Sonoyta, Sonoran Desert, MEXICO, May 2019 © Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos
His Fragile Wonders not only tell of the climate crisis, but also open up space for new, dignified ways of looking at nature beyond catastrophes.
The exhibition was developed for the Gallerie d'Italia, Museum Intesa Sanpaolo in Turin and adapted and expanded for the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg in collaboration with Magnum Photos. Already nominated in 2001, Paolo Pellegrin has been a member of the renowned Magnum photo agency since 2005.
November 25, 2023 to May 26, 2024
