LIGHTS UP: photographs by Gian Paolo Barbieri and Michel Haddi
From 23 February to 23 March 2024, Gian Paolo Barbieri participates in the exhibition LIGHTS UP, presented in Silvaplana during the Nomad St. Moritz week, at the new exhibition space “La Rampa” within Gallaria Sonne.
The project unfolds in a site-specific environment conceived as a space entirely dedicated to contemporary art and photography. Characterised by a striking architectural intervention inside a monumental reinforced concrete structure, “La Rampa” offers an immersive experience in which light becomes an essential narrative and spatial element. Visitors are invited to move through a deliberately constructed path where perception of time and distance gradually dissolves, allowing full focus on the artworks.
Within this context, Gian Paolo Barbieri presents a carefully curated selection of photographs that reaffirm his status as one of the most influential voices in international fashion photography. His work is recognised for its distinctive balance between sophistication and irony, elegance and provocation, and for its continuous dialogue with art history and visual culture.
In this exhibition, Barbieri’s approach to fashion imagery is expressed through both his iconic black-and-white language and his refined use of colour. His subjects appear suspended between reality and idealisation, defined by a sharp and unmistakable aesthetic clarity. At the same time, the colour works reveal a more personal and interpretative dimension of fashion, where femininity becomes expressive, autonomous, and subtly subversive.
Rather than adhering to conventional fashion poses, the figures in his photographs embody a new form of elegance—nonchalant, sensual, and consciously detached from traditional representation. This perspective reflects Barbieri’s long-standing ability to reinterpret beauty through a cinematic and highly constructed visual imagination, where every image becomes both narrative and composition.
Presented alongside other major figures in contemporary photography within the same exhibition context, Barbieri’s contribution stands as a central reflection on the evolution of fashion photography as an artistic language—situated between documentation and invention, realism and stylisation.
Set in the unique atmosphere of the Engadine region, the exhibition highlights the dialogue between architecture, light, and photographic vision, reinforcing Barbieri’s ongoing relevance in the contemporary cultural landscape and his enduring capacity to redefine the codes of visual elegance.
INFORMATION
24 February – 23 March 2024
Daily, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
“La Rampa”, Gallaria Sonne Via Maistra 21 7513 Silvaplana, Switzerland