Indian Faces: an exhibition by Alberto Moretti

Italian photographer Alberto Moretti presents Indian Faces at the NYIFF - New York Indian Film Festival - May 4-8 2011

“A photographer of gestures who has often chosen a dancing body in an attempt to capture, with aesthetic pleasure, the hidden anxiety and vitality of human emotions. Moretti has worked on portraits for several years, trying to give expression to such sentiments. 'Faces', as he calls them, are photographed by Moretti as if they were sacred places, analysed in their most intimate features, trying to reveal their passions, self-confidence, hidden feelings. One of the most prominent features of Moretti’s portraits is their attention to details; his close-ups reveal fragments of expression that still convey vibrant emotions. His eyes never seem to rest, looking for the overwhelming passions surfacing on human faces.”

Italian, from north-east region Friuli, free-lance photographer, Alberto Moretti, designated as one of the top ten photographers in the world in the music/performance section by the jury of Sony World Photographers Awards 2008, has published various books focused on the representation of dance, the human body, and street scenes. He was also the topic of a doctoral thesis “History of the Photography of Dance” at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice.  His photographs appear in specialized magazines, company catalogues, newspapers, posters and playbills in Europe, the USA and South America. He has exhibited his works in various galleries and theatres in Italy and Europe.

© Alberto Moretti. Self-taken photo.

The President of IAAC (Indo-American Arts Council) and Director of the NYIFF, Ms. Aroon Shivdasani, has invited the artist to New York, on the occasion of the “2011 New York Indian Film Festival", to exhibit his 33 portraits "INDIAN FACES" at the Tribeca Cinema in Manhattan from May 4th to May 8th.   Moretti will exhibit his works together with those of Udinese photographer Giulia Iacolutti, because her photographs “look for the Spirit within things and seem to explore the shadow line that traces our human destiny”.  Moretti is able to tell us a story behind the ‘Faces’ of some of the protagonists of Bollywood giant movie industry, which, together with Hollywood, releases the majority of films worldwide.

The exhibition “INDIAN FACES”, sponsored by PMP Industries and OAK Europe, is the second stage of a project started by the artist, together with Ms. Iacolutti, in November 2010, during the 10th edition of the Indian Film Festival in New York. On that occasion Moretti and Iacolutti had taken photographic portraits of a number of important members of the Indian and Indo-American intellectual elite, among whom the author of ‘The Satanic Verses’ Salman Rushdie, film director Mani Ratnam (awarded a prize at the latest Venice Film Festival), award-winning actor Rahul Bose, gallery owner Sundaram Tagore, of the Tagore dinasty, Somi Roy, son of the last Princess of Manipur, and many other well-known faces of Bollywood cinema. Moretti’s work had been greatly appreciated for his very personal approach to photographic portraits.