Arcigay is pleased to announce the inauguration of Tony Patrioli's male nude exhibition "Mediterranea Passione" on Wednesday, June 8, at 6 p.m., at Labuan, Via Tiburtina 295, Rome.
The photographer immediately and explicitly addressed the gay world, declaring himself homosexual as early as the 1970s in the monthly magazine “Homo”.
In the same monthly magazine he published his first softcore photos, producing erotic images from 1976 to 1986 for this and other magazines, both Italian and foreign (especially Northern European).
“"Erotic photography was the only nude photography that had a market at the time. There were almost no books about nudes, and there was no market for that type of product," Patrioli recalls. Nevertheless, alongside erotic photography, Patrioli cultivated artistic nudes, initially drawing explicit inspiration from von Gloeden's photography. "Partly because Gloeden was the only male nude photographer not banned in Italy at the time, and partly because his imagination partly coincided with mine. American photos of bodybuilders seemed too distant from the world and the boys I saw around me," Patrioli explains.
Patrioli thus portrayed and documented the last season of a Mediterranean culture, which has now disappeared in Italy due to the advent of the "sexual revolution", of young people who were often heterosexual but willingly available for homoerotic games despite not having access to heterosexual relationships.
Patrioli's works will be presented by: Giovan Battista Brambilla, photographer and photography historian, Giovanni Dall'Orto, historian of the LGBT movement, Andrea Pini, historian and author of the essay Quando eravamo froci (Il Saggiatore), and queer artist Filippo Riniolo.
The exhibition, with free admission, will be open from June 8th to 19th from 4pm to 8pm and features twenty nudes and portraits, many of which have never been exhibited before.