Mario Testino: Unfiltered

October 1, 2021 - February 28, 2022

A world exclusive and for the first time in Italy, 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery is proud to present "Mario Testino: Unfiltered", the first major exhibition of this celebrated artist and photographer's work never shown before in a gallery. The show will take place in two consecutive exhibitions in Milan, the first from 1st of October - 27th of November and the second from 2nd of December 2021 - 28th of February 2022. Alongside his rarest and most iconic large format photographs, the Milanese gallery will also present an exclusive and unpublished body of work available in new formats and editions, thereby revealing a lesser known, more spontaneous and personal side of the artist's oeuvre.

"Shooting images continuously and for many years, it's nice to sometimes stop and self-reflect, to examine that which others see and take from my photographs." - Mario Testino

The ambitious exhibition will bring to the attention of Italian and International collectors more than 50 artworks carefully selected by the gallery owners and Mario Testino. The exhibition will include not only the photographer's most beloved muses, in both iconic and previously unpublished shots, but it will also demonstrate the photographer's vast creativity, as much in fashion as in his most intimate portraits, brought together in an ode to Italy. The exhibition, in fact, will include a selection of works from the recent publication Ciao (Taschen, 2020), a book dedicated to the artist's love affair with Italy. "Discovering Italy was a powerful experience that has captured my imagination. I felt a profound connection with everything I saw around me. I loved the people, the landscape, the architecture, and how art and beauty were such a casual, natural part of life." - Mario Testino.

Part two of the exhibition will contain a body of never before seen work, intimate portraits, authentic snapshots of an artist's life lived to the fullest, alongside a few of the faces that have left an indelible mark on his extraordinary career. "Working with Mario Testino and his team has been a great pleasure and honour for us" say Eugenio Calini and Luca Casulli, owners of 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery. "It's wonderful to have the chance to get know the more authentic side of an artist of such talent and above all observe the great trust he has placed in us, a trust which is at the heart of any successful relationship." The exhibition "Mario Testino: Unfiltered" will open to the public on the 1st of October 2021 at the gallery in Via San Vittore 13, Milan.

Sienna Miller, Rome, American Vogue 2007 © Mario Testino

Mario Testino
Widely regarded as one of the most influential fashion and portrait photographers, Mario Testino is responsible for the creation of emblematic images, transmitting emotion and energy in an open and intimate way, transgressing cultures and gender to document all people of the world. Testino's work has been exhibited in museums around the world, including the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin (Undressed, 2017), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (In Your Face, 2012), the Shanghai Art Museum (Private View, 2012) and the National Portrait Gallery in London (Portraits, 2002).
All about Mario Testino

Eva Herzigivá, Rome, Vogue Paris 2006 © Mario Testino

Philip Bode, Palmarola 2016 © Mario Testino

Virginia Hanusik: Into the Quiet and the Light

By Virginia Hanusik

Publisher : Columbia Books on Architecture and the City

2024 | 184 pages

In South Louisiana, where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico, water―and the history of controlling it―is omnipresent. Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life, and Land Loss in South Louisiana glimpses the vulnerabilities and possibilities of living on the water during an ongoing climate catastrophe and the fallout of the fossil fuel industry―past, present, and future. The book sustains our physical, mental, and emotional connections to these landscapes through a collection of photographs by Virginia Hanusik. Framing the architecture and infrastructure of South Louisiana with both distance and intimacy, introspection and expansiveness, this work engages new memories, microhistories, anecdotes, and insights from scholars, artists, activists, and practitioners working in the region. Unfolding alongside and in dialogue with Hanusik’s photographs, these reflections soberly and hopefully populate images of South Louisiana’s built and natural environments, opening up multiple pathways that defy singularity and complicate the disaster-oriented imagery often associated with the region and its people. In staging these meditations on water, life, and land loss, this book invites readers to join both Hanusik and the contributors in reading multiplicity into South Louisiana’s water-ruled landscapes.

With texts from Richie Blink, Imani Jacqueline Brown, Jessica Dandridge, Rebecca Elliott, Michael Esealuka, T. Mayheart Dardar, Billy Fleming, Andy Horowitz, Arthur Johnson, Louis Michot, Nini Nguyen, Kate Orff, Jessi Parfait, Amy Stelly, Jonathan Tate, Aaron Turner, and John Verdin.

Rawsht Twana: Twana’s Box

By Rawsht Twana

Publisher : Fraglich Publishing

2024 | 252 pages

Twana’s Box' can be described in many ways: a journey through a photographer’s rare archive, documenting the Kurdistan region of Iraq from 1974–1992; a son’s quest to find his lost father, who was murdered by a military regime; a young man’s way to piece together the fragments of a scattered family in a scattered culture; the becoming of a photographer who, through the stories of others, starts to understand his own identity in times of war. 'Twana’s Box' is not only the photo book that holds a selection of Twana Abdullah’s archive; it is a unique insight into a time and place in a region that has since completely transformed. Rawsht has spent years piecing together his father’s negatives and stories. His archival work inspired him to become a photographer himself, working for Metrography – the first independent Iraqi photo agency – before immigrating to Europe. ills colour & bw, 21 x 27 cm, hb, Kurdish/Arabic/English

Akinbode Akinbiyi: Being, Seeing, Wandering

By Akinbode Akinbiyi

Publisher : Spector Books

2024 | 252 pages

Taken across Europe and Africa, Akinbiyi’s images of everyday city life muse on the sociopolitical labyrinths of urban society

Whether in Bamako, Berlin, London, Lagos or Durban, British photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi (born 1946) creates black-and-white street scenes that function as visual metaphors, ruminating on cultural change, social exclusion and colonialism’s effect on urban planning.

Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm

By Grace Wales Bonner

Publisher : The Museum of Modern Art, New York

2024 | 184 pages

A deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression, curated by the acclaimed London-based designer
This volume, Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm―Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection, is an artist’s book created by the acclaimed London-based designer Grace Wales Bonner as “an archive of soulful expression.” Through an extraordinary selection of nearly 80 works from The Museum of Modern Art’s collection and archives, this unique volume draws multisensory connections between pictures and poems, music and performance, hearing and touch, gestures and vibrations, and bodies in motion. Photographs, scores and films by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Roy DeCarava, Lee Friedlander, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Lorna Simpson and Ming Smith, among others, are juxtaposed with signal texts by Black authors spanning the past century, including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Robin Coste Lewis, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Jean Toomer, Quincy Troupe and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner―Spirit Movers, this resplendent publication is a deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression that echoes Wales Bonner’s own vibrant, virtuosic designs.

Mario Testino: Unfiltered

October 1, 2021 - February 28, 2022

29 Arts In Progress Gallery

Selected Books