Dryphoto is a non-profit cultural space that began its activities in 1977 in several different cultural contexts, organizing exhibitions, conferences, shows and workshops. At the time it consisted of a group of artists and cultural operators who used to meet to exchange ideas about the specificity of photographic language, set up experimental projects and organize exhibition. In 1981 the exhibition site in via Pugliesi 23, in the historical centre of the city, was inaugurated with two exhibitions by Luigi Ghirri, Topographie, Iconographie and Still-life. Thinking about the linguistic meaning of the photographic medium and about the mechanisms of vision and representation of reality meant getting away from photography of an ethnographic and anthropological character and from photo reporting. Dryphoto thus attempted a shift in focus and poetics, in light also of the strong currents of social change and search for identity that were being experienced in those years. Their exhibition activity is characterized by constant attention to young artists without, however, forgetting established ones.
Dryphoto has always sought a privileged relationship with its local area, a political vocation that has motivated them from the outset: working with the here and now in mind, without descending into provincialism. Because of its need to leave the various exhibition ceremonials and its refusal to inhabit only privileged and institution spaces and contexts, Dryphoto has been creating projects which, through the involvement of different professional figures, take into account the local economic and socio-political situation in which it operates, influenced by major changes that have taken place at a global level. In 2011 Dryphoto contemporary art moved to a new site in via della Segherie 33a.
For more information:
www.dryphoto.it