Born in Padua on June 7, 1945.
Roberto Salbitani began photographing in 1971. During the 1970s, his photographic work accompanied his life discoveries while traveling around Italy and many foreign countries. The dimension of travel, the unplanned discovery of places, the search for and creation of a chosen place – the attempt to interpret them visually, to bring to the surface both their splendors and illusions – would become a constant in his way of relating to the surrounding world. Real journeys connected by the absolutely necessary thread of visionary clarity.
His first work was titled La città invasa (The Invaded City, 1972–1984), while simultaneously constructing the series titled Viaggio (Journey, 1974–1982). He subsequently created: Dalle mille e una notte (passate al cinema) (From One Thousand and One Nights [Spent at the Cinema], 1973–1980), Viaggio in terre sospese (Journey in Suspended Lands, 1975), Viaggio nel sud-Italia (Journey in Southern Italy, 1981–1982), Lettera dall’ex manicomio S. Giovanni di Trieste (Letter from the Former San Giovanni Asylum in Trieste, 1986), Il punto di vista del topo (The Mouse’s Point of View, 1986–1992), along with other works produced in the areas of Venice, Naples, Trieste, and other Italian and foreign locations.
In 1978, La città invasa was published by Punto e Virgola Editions, Modena: a book considered a cornerstone of the new expressive currents in photography that emerged in the 1970s. His photographs have been published in volumes associated with the most significant experiences in contemporary photography, including:
Napoli ’81, sette fotografi per una nuova immagine, Electa, 1981. Trouver Trieste: visages et paysages hier et aujourd’hui, Electa, Milan, 1986. Storia della Fotografia Italiana, Laterza, Bari, 1986. L’Insistenza dello sguardo, Alinari, Florence, 1989. Terre a Nordest, Alinari, Spilimbergo, 1996. L’idea di paesaggio nella fotografia italiana dal 1850 ad oggi, Silvana Editoriale, Modena, 2003. Storia d’Italia, vol. XX – L’immagine fotografica 1945–2000, Einaudi, Turin, 2004.
After collaborating with the magazine Progresso fotografico (1972–1978), he began in 1986 to write texts on photography for Fotologia, Quaderni di storia e critica della fotografia (Florence).
Teaching
In 1980, he founded the Centro Fotografia Giudecca on the Venetian island of the same name, where until 1985 he organized integrated photography programs including courses, exhibitions, meetings, territorial projects, and historical archives. In 1986, in Mogginano, in the province of Arezzo, he established the School of Photography in Nature, where he conducted weekend workshops until 1996. The school later moved to other locations in natural landscapes (Faenza, Siena), and after 2000 the courses became part of the activities of the C.R.A.F. in Spilimbergo. In parallel, he began conducting what he called “journey-courses,” a form of teaching practiced directly in the field.
In 1992, he published Incontri con animali straordinari (Encounters with Extraordinary Animals), Mugnai Editions, Bologna, and completed the photographic series Il punto di vista del topo (The Mouse’s Point of View, 1986–1992). In 1993, he received the “Friuli-Venezia Giulia Prize” for photography. In 1994, he published Il viaggio (The Journey), C.R.A.F. Editions, Spilimbergo, curated by Italo Zannier: a book that accompanied a retrospective of his work organized by the Friulian center, later hosted by the Museo del Santo in Padua in 1998.
During those years, his project dedicated to Venice began, concluding in 2007: “Venezia – Circumnavigazioni e derive” (Venice – Circumnavigations and Drifts). In 1999, Ripensando Segantini (Rethinking Segantini) was published, followed in 2000 by Ritratti a Bologna (Portraits in Bologna) and the first images of Autismi, a work focused on the automobile and the road, completed in 2006.
In 2011, he participated in the 54th Venice Biennale with two sequences taken from “Autismi” and “Venezia – Circumnavigazioni e derive”. In 2012, Venezia – Circumnavigazioni e derive was published by Quinlan Editions. In 2013, the Museum of Contemporary Photography hosted a retrospective of his work: “Roberto Salbitani. Storia di un viaggiatore” (The Story of a Traveler), accompanied by the book of the same name curated by Roberta Valtorta.
In 2015, he participated in the project The Image of Italy through Photography, part of Expo 2015, with several photographs taken in Calabria during the 1970s, later exhibited at the MUSA Museum in Salò in 2016. In the same year, the retrospective “Roberto Salbitani. Storia di un viaggiatore” was exhibited at the Centro Candiani in Mestre. In 2017, he published Quaderni di Mogginano 1, a precious booklet of notes, thoughts, stories, and images drawn from his diaries during his time living in Tuscany, in Mogginano.
In 2019, two new publications were released: Danzare la terra. La Tuscia antica dello sguardo (Dancing the Earth: The Ancient Gaze of Tuscia), which accompanied the exhibition of the same name at the University of Tuscia, and Il viaggiatore parallelo, fotografie e scritti in diretta dal treno (The Parallel Traveler: Photographs and Writings Live from the Train) featuring images and texts by the author.
The author currently resides in Rome.
