Mario Giacomelli

Until 6 April 2025, the Palazzo del Duca in Senigallia hosts the exhibition La Camera Oscura di Giacomelli (Giacomelli’s Darkroom), presented as part of the celebrations marking the centenary of Mario Giacomelli’s birth.

Curated by Katiuscia Biondi Giacomelli in collaboration with the Archivio Mario Giacomelli, the exhibition brings together around one hundred original photographs—including vintage and period prints—spanning the artist’s entire career, from the 1950s to 2000, the year of his death.

The exhibition opens with the multimedia installation Sotto la pelle del reale (Beneath the Skin of Reality), which recreates Giacomelli’s creative process. Visitors are guided by the artist’s own voice, taken from a 2000 interview for Radio 3 Suite, while moving images and excerpts from his writings unfold in sequence, evoking his profound and poetic understanding of photography as a means of exploring both reality and the inner self. Here, the images follow the same soaring vertical movements and plunges into the void through which Giacomelli pursued the Infinite, echoing the gestures of his darkroom practice: at the enlarger, with the light-sensitive paper held at an angle, immersing the world in a sense of vertigo.

At the heart of the exhibition is the darkroom itself—the place where Giacomelli gave shape to his artistic imagination.

Alongside the photographs, visitors can also view original equipment, including his Kobell camera, as well as props and objects used in the making of his photographs.