This and more is Mimmo Jodice. “Mediterraneo” the exhibition curated by Carlo Sala, will welcome the public from July 7 to November 8, 2026, at Palazzo Lanfranchi, home of the National Museums of Matera, before moving to the Centre d’Art Moderne in Tétouan, Morocco, from early December 2026 to mid-February 2027.
Promoted by the Ministry of Culture’s Task Force for Cultural Cooperation with Africa and the Broader Mediterranean, in collaboration with the City of Matera, the Matera Basilicata 2019 Foundation, the MUNAF – National Museum of Photography, and Studio Jodice-thanks to the hospitality of the National Museums of Matera at Palazzo Lanfranchi-and with scientific consultation from the Ministry of Culture’s Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity, the exhibition is part of the “Matera and Tétouan: Mediterranean Capitals of Culture and Dialogue 2026” initiative, symbolizing a connection between the two shores of the Mediterranean.
The exhibition features 83 photographic works, 68 of which are vintage silver-salt prints on baryta paper with selenium toning, created by the artist himself between the late 1980s and early 1990s and belonging to the famous *Mediterraneo* series: they come from the private collection “i Cotroneo, Rome,” and have been loaned for exhibition purposes by the collector himself and by the Farnesina Collection of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, which holds them in storage and is exhibiting a portion of them.
The exhibition is complemented by five large-format works (140×100 cm) from the *Danzatrici* series and an appendix of 10 vintage and modern works dedicated to Mimmo Jodice’s most recent explorations of the Mediterranean, on loan from Studio Jodice. Together, they form the core of the first major institutional monographic exhibition since the artist’s passing-an undisputed leading figure in the history of contemporary European photography-and a significant opportunity to reintroduce the now-historic *Mediterraneo* series to the public and bring it up to date, demonstrating how the artist returned to this body of work consistently and with gentle tenacity over the years.
The images are the result of numerous expeditions dedicated to Mediterranean culture and archaeology, beginning with his homeland-to which Jodice remained deeply attached-featuring views of Paestum, Pompeii, Cuma, and Baia.
The perspective then broadens to encompass a wider Mediterranean, stretching from Greece to Turkey, from Jordan to Tunisia, and from France to Libya.
Among his most famous works are the Athletes from the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum and The Dancers, housed at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, in which the ancient sculptures emerge from shadows that lend them a sense of dynamism, as if animated by a vital energy.
These are images imbued with powerful emotional pathos, as are all those on display depicting monuments and statuary-an effect made possible by the artist’s masterful technical use of photography, both during shooting and in the darkroom, where he accentuated contrasts and rendered the blacks deep and the whites dazzling.
The exhibition also marks the occasion for an expanded and updated reissue of the book *Mediterraneo*, originally published by the New York-based publisher Aperture to accompany a major inaugural exhibition of Jodice’s images at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1995; it is now being published by Marsilio with graphic design by Studio Sonnoli and supplemented with additional works related to the famous *Mediterraneo* series.
The volume contains a curatorial essay by Carlo Sala, reprints the text by Predrag Matvejević originally published in the 1995 edition, and includes a contribution by Salvatore Settis, previously published in the catalog for the exhibition *Attesa* (Electa, 2016) and presented here in its final version.
“In the photographer’s images,” reads Carlo Sala’s text introducing the volume produced for the exhibition -the statues are the subjects imbued with the greatest expressive pathos, because their faces are charged with a pulsating humanity where bronze and marble lose the icy formal perfection intended by their anonymous creators and become emotional matter capable of conveying a variety of feelings that resonate from ancient man into the consciousness of the contemporary.
These photographs, in turn, engage in a dialogue with images born from the artist’s exploration of an almost metaphysical Mediterranean landscape, featuring visions of a sea devoid of any anthropogenic traces of the present, toward which Jodice-in a silent, suspended atmosphere-seeks to adopt the same gaze as the inhabitants of antiquity.
“Mimmo Jodice experiences the sea as an outlet for a kind of farewell,” writes Predrag Matvejević in his essay written at the time and now reprinted in Marsilio’s reissue, “an offshore island, a haven of peace, capable of welcoming us at the end of a voyage. Hope is still permitted there. There, unease ends, and anguish dissolves. The light is at times intense, at times fragile, delicate. The sun is observed with tenderness […]. Geometry is the child of the Mediterranean. Even the ruins continue to preserve its traces. In each of his photographs, Jodice seeks at least one fragment of surface where an orderly or regular arrangement remains.
“His gaze upon the waves of the Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas, upon the crumbling walls of Ostia or Pergamon, upon the stone and bronze faces of Pompeii and Herculaneum-as Salvatore Settis recalls in his essay dedicated to Mimmo Jodice in 2016 and 2020, which is also included in this reissue-has a scope of unusual breadth. […] Few photographers have been able to demonstrate as clearly as he has that photography is not mere recording, but rather an interpretation and re-creation of the reality that surrounds us; that the instant the shutter clicks can be multiplied and broken down, in a sort of fission of the atom that is the stuff of experience and imagination.
Thus says Angelo Piero Cappello, Director General of the Mission Unit for Cultural Cooperation with Africa and the Broader Mediterranean: “Mimmo Jodice’s images remind us that the Mediterranean is not a dividing frontier, but a unifying space: an extraordinary mosaic of different identities, cultures, colors, scents, sensibilities, and memories that find, precisely in their plurality, a common root. An ancient and vital root, beautifully branched out across time and space.
Davide Rondoni, President of the National Museum of Photography, comments: “The exhibition and the book-to which Munaf is contributing with pleasure and emotion-bring together the capitals of the Mediterranean in dialogue, and Mimmo Jodice is the artist best suited to bring this dual opportunity-that of history and photography-into focus. A composed and unique gesture from a great artist who had photography and the Mediterranean in his veins. And he continues to bestow this gift upon us.
Angela Jodice says: “In 1993, Michael Hoffman and a young Melissa Harris, while conducting research on European photography, came to visit us in the studio. Mimmo showed them the work on archaeology and the Mediterranean that he had begun. Hoffman was enthusiastic about the project, the prints, and the new narrative vision. They asked us to complete the work so they could present it in the United States. We worked intensely, driven by that recognition, from one sea to another, from one coast to another, always captivated by extraordinary places. When the Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art saw the work, he was left breathless-and so were we, at the opportunity and the recognition of Mimmo’s great art.
Antonio Nicoletti, Mayor of Matera, states: “The art of photography has a deep connection with Matera, not only because the city has been the focus of great photographers of the twentieth century. It is, perhaps, the ‘city of stone’s’ relationship with time that constitutes the strongest link to that art, which extracts a moment from time, fixing it in the truth of an image.nnIn Mimmo Jodice’s art, this relationship with time is amplified and enriched with meaning. He worked in Matera, and today the city’s role as the ‘Mediterranean capital’ makes this connection relevant, turning this exhibition into an opportunity to highlight the cultural heritage that unites the peoples on both shores of the Mediterranean. The exhibition invites reflection on the relationship between memory, archaeology, landscape, and Mediterranean civilization, offering the public a profound exploration of a shared historical and cultural heritage.
“Mimmo Jodice’s exhibition is an immediate and necessary expression of the insights that underpinned Matera’s bid to become the Mediterranean Capital of Culture and Dialogue 2026,” states Rita Orlando, General Director of the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation. “His visual exploration reveals a timeless Mediterranean, a cultural reality that extends beyond the coastline and is embedded in the stone, the landscape, and the memory of the inland regions: there is a deep connection with the vision that forms the foundation of Matera 2026. That perspective is now fully integrated into the ‘Terre Immerse’ program and serves as an authentic interpretive gateway to understanding the Mediterranean, for which Matera intends to be a voice.
Raffaella Bonaudo, Director of the National Museums of Matera-Regional Directorate of National Museums of Basilicata, adds: “Palazzo Lanfranchi is delighted to host the exhibition by Mimmo Jodice, a master of contemporary photography, offering the public the opportunity to engage with one of the most significant artistic experiences of our time. The exhibition fits seamlessly into the museum’s cultural program: like Carlo Levi and Luigi Guerricchio, Jodice embarks on a journey through memory, transforming the image into a tool for knowledge and participation. His photographs go beyond a mere representation of reality and invite each viewer to recognize themselves, their own history, and their relationship with the community. This makes Jodice a potentially integral part of Palazzo Lanfranchi’s cultural heritage.”
