Les Plages du Var

Massimo Vitali
Les Plages du Var

Photographs: Massimo Vitali

Text: Sophie Biass-Fabiani

Publisher: Hôtel des Arts

136 pages

Pictures: 64

Year: 2000

Comments: Softcover. 220 x 170 mm. Some pictures look like they're printed on cocktail napkins. Printed on different types of paper. Edition of numbered copies. Included in Martin Parr & Gerry Badger's The Photobook: A History, vol.II, p. 284. In good condition slightly bumped to the spine

Along with photographers of the "New Objectivity", Massimo Vitali created encompassing views of several beachs in the french region of Var (and some places in Italy as well) by putting his camera on top of a scaffold. Located in water, near the beaches, this system allowed Massimo Vitali to photograph the crowded edge of the sea but the inside of the land as well : sea resort, mountains, industrial zones,...

Through Vitali's eye, beachs look like an in-between land, a refuge in one hand, against everyday troubles and a destroyed concrete made seacost and polluted place on an other hand. The photographer witnesses this paradox with a ironic point of view.