The exhibition "Gianni Berengo Gardin. The eye as a profession" is staged at the Maxxi Museum in Rome from 04 May to 18 September.

Man and his social space in the concrete and analogical nature of the master of reportage photography and social investigation.

The story unfolds along a path of over 150 photographs, from the most famous, the least known, to the unpublished ones : a unique visual heritage, from the post-war period to today, characterized by consistency in linguistic choices and an "artisanal" approach to photographic practice.

From the Venice of the first images to the Milan of industry, intellectuals, workers' struggles ; from the workplace (the reports made for Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Pirelli, and above all Olivetti) to those of everyday life; from psychiatric hospitals (with Morire di classe of 1968), to the universe of the gypsies; from the many small rural villages to the big cities; from L'Aquila hit by the earthquake at the MAXXI under construction photographed in 2009.

Through a fluid and non-chronological path, the exhibition offers a reflection on the peculiar characteristics of Berengo Gardin 's research: the centrality of man and his place in the social space; the concretely but also poetically analogical nature of his "real" photography (uncut, not manipulated); the power and specificity of his way of constructing the narrative sequence, which leaves no room for simple descriptions of space but naturally builds stories.