Florence's SpazioFoto is opening next season with the one-artist exhibition 'Too Much'. Mounted in association with Switzerland's Arts Centre, the exhibition is showing a rich collection of photographs by Stefania Beretta.

Unlike the more intimate and autobiographical 'Rooms' (2000), which included a series of images of hotel rooms where Beretta had stayed on the occasion of her overseas travels, this project, on which the Swiss photographer has been at work over the last two years, focuses on a more common topic. 'As I decided to portray rubbish recycling, I went to several rubbish collection centres around the Ticino. 'I was astonished at seeing all that in our consumer society - says Beretta. A society that often goes to extremes, a society that fills the world with rubbish, which is produced, transformed and recycled in the name of civilization'.

In photographs by Stefania Beretta, writes Dominique Gaessler in an introductory note to the exhibition, like in a painting by Pollock, images are to be found in the tangle of forms, in the chance event that puts objects next to each other and in the photographer's great skill. When taking her photographs, Beretta always tries to give a perfect picture of the situation with no hesitation. Full of colours, these photographs seem to move in a sort of organic disorder. There are elements which, at first , appear to be rather vague but then reveal their real nature looking like what they actually are: rubbish.

The exhibition presents a collection of thirty big-sized images (cm 70x100, 130x100, 80x250). With their deep colours, these photographs portray those objects that we thought we had got rid of. Looking at these images, we can even notice some unexpected features of rubbish. Beautiful combinations of coloured wiring ropes, plastic bottles, tins , waste papers and rags - for instance - can make pop-art pictures. Beretta takes photographs from close up, as well as from afar. She puts fragments of different images on each other and next to each other making objects lose their identity to become pure colour and form.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Stefania Beretta was born in Vacallo (Switzerland) in 1957. She has been a freelance photographer since 1979. She specialized in Photography of Architecture and objects of art, continuing at the same time to challenge herself and hone her art. In 1955, she received the first prize in a photography contest organised by Società Ticinese di Belle Arti. In 1994, she stayed for six months at the "Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris" thanks to a grant received by the SPSAS Ticino (Swiss Association of painters, sculptors and Architects). This experience led to the publication of a book called 'Paris Noir'(1997). In 1998 she was in Vilnius (Lithuania), where she worked on a personal project for the Europos Parkas Arts Center. In the same year, she was given a federal grant by the Gleyre Foundation (Switzerland). Since 1980 she has been travelling quite a lot around Europe, Asia and America. A book called 'Città d'Europa' (European Towns), published by CGA&P - a publishing house based in Lugano - in 1998, includes a series of images that make us share Beretta's point of view, her personal experiences and way of living.

In 2000, Paris publishing house Trans Photographic Press published her book called 'Rooms'. Since 1985, Stefania Beretta has been regularly exhibiting her works in Switzerland, as well as in the rest of Europe. Photographs by Stefania Beretta are now part of public (e.g. Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, the Swiss Photography Foundation) and private collections. Stefania Beretta lives and works in Giubiasco (Switzerland).