La terra metafisica 22-Palermo-Edition of 7-Gelatin Silver Print Photograph

Attilio Scimone was born in Riesi in 1951 in a small town in the Sicilian hinterland. He began photographing during his university studies at the Faculty of Architecture in Palermo. His first photographs were in the areas of architecture and landscape. During those years he took courses with philosopher Rosario Assunto on landscape aesthetics. These were fundamental years for his specific preparation in the aesthetic language of architecture and landscape, which in the years to follow he would devote to the complexity of that of Sicily. In those years he frequents Sicilian art movements making several collaborations with artists in the field of experimentation. The series “Parcel Man” made with artist Salvatore Salamone is from 1974. One of the works “Liberation” from 1976 is part of the Collection of the Diocesan Museum Palazzo Arcivescovile, Palermo. From the beginning he personally prints photographs exploring the aesthetic and creative possibility of photographic chemistry. He works on several projects using photography and black and white printing as an expressive element, thus beginning an artistic journey that will be a point of reference in the following decades. In the 1980s he devoted himself to photography of landscape, architecture and industrial archaeology. He is commissioned by the Regional Province of Caltanissetta to make a study entitled “Caltanissetta and its Territory,” from the extensive photographic documentation produced using large-format cameras. The photographic work in effect becomes a study of the landscape and identity of the territory of Central Sicily. An exhibition is held with the most significant images, and the entire work is published by the promoting body in five volumes. In those years, in addition to collaborating with various educational institutions in teaching the language of photography, he produces other research such as the documentation made again with large-format and black-and-white cameras on Sulfur Mines in Sicily. The documentation produced takes on a remarkable importance as all those structures that represented the economy of central Sicily for so many years are photographed, as well as all the international technologies applied to the structures and machinery for the extraction, processing and transport of sulfur.