Magnifica HumanitasMatteo Basilé
Italian Cultural Institute, Paris Date
12 November 2026 – 22 January 2027 Curated by
Antonio Calbi, Dominique Moulon
Magnifica Humanitas · installation project 
Two hundred years of photography, a humanity to defend
In the year photography turns two hundred, Matteo Basilé comes to Paris with his first exhibition almost entirely in black and white: some forty works including photographic prints, video installations, a film and an environmental installation. The title comes from the first encyclical of Leo XIV, devoted to safeguarding the human person in the age of artificial intelligence. What makes a face human?
The portraits
Unique pieces, pigment and powder prints on cotton paper engraved by hand, where the smoke of candles from Roman churches becomes painting. Set along the shelves that wrap the walls of the salons, they form a continuous predella, a procession of lay saints beneath the coffered ceilings of the palace.
The film
Inspired by Dante’s trasumanar, Magnifica Humanitas is a black-and-white journey across a land without borders, crossed by the last men, in the wake of Pasolini, neorealism and La Haine, with music by Marco Del Bene (MKDB).
Superstes
In the last room a greenhouse becomes a glass chapel, a tabernacle. Outside lives a fern, a plant born before the Earth knew flowers, survivor of five extinctions: superstes, in Latin, is the one who remains and can therefore bear witness. Its electrical impulses become a face on a screen placed where, in a church, the altar would stand.
Catalogue by Dario Cimorelli Editore, with texts by Antonio Calbi, Dominique Moulon and Airona Altman
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Thursday 12 November 2026, Italian Cultural Institute, Paris. Write to receive an invitation.
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