Berruti, Massimo
A keen documentary eye characterises the style of Massimo Berruti, a young Roman reporter (class of ’79). The photography this front-line correspondent engaged in many of the planet’s hot-spots, is oriented towards issues of social order such race, poverty, war and immigration, with particular reference to the marginal territories that are frequently voiceless or unheard: “Photography fascinates me thanks to its innate capacity for communication; it’s a way of saying something… I would like my photos to speak through their contents, the substance. I don’t want to influence the interpretation through atmospheric tricks. I think that a photograph should be sought rather than constructed.”
In 2007, Berruti participated in the atlante italiano07 Rischio paesaggio project with work on illegal building in Sicily. The sharpness of his black and white accentuates the conditions of neglect and abuse, highlighting how above all what is truly disturbing is the indifference with which the landscape is exploited: out of this conflict between archaeology and illegal building emerges an alarming factor concerning the state our conscience rather than that of our aesthetic sensibility.