A special exhibition based on the work of French artist and photographer Francis Giacobetti, who travelled around the world for ten years to meet some of the most visionary men and women of the twentieth century and take their pictures. Vision comprises 150 black-and-white portraits, plus a colour picture of the iris. Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi, Barack Obama, Bob Dylan, Stephen Hawking, Mikhail Gorbachev, Buzz Aldrin, Woody Allen… never before had such a comprehensive gallery of modern portraits ever been assembled, recapping the story of artists, scientists, literati, filmmakers, politicians, and peacemakers.

About forty years ago, Francis Giacobetti developed a new approach for a series of pictures that have become legendary. He clearly saw the diptych: a black and white portrait and a colored iris. The first on the list was the Dalai Lama in the late 1980s. Giacobetti said: «No one could refuse after him! The project took off at a lightning speed. The more examples you had, the easier it was to convince other people to take part in it.» More than thirty years later, the result is now VISION

The exhibition will be open November 18 to January 15 of next year, at Procuratie Vecchie, by Piazza San Marco 105. The project has been curated and produced by Baluze and is organized in ‘constellations’ of relations, based on how the protagonists of the exhibition see the world. We’ll start with visionary leaders, politicians, and activists who can show the way to a brighter future, followed by creative visionaries: filmmakers, actors, dancers, authors, artists, musicians, architects — people who can see things before they exist, and can make them real. Lastly, the explorers, researchers, and scientists that can see things that couldn’t be seen before. From an individual, introspective point of view to a shared experience of exploration of otherness to a majestic, hypnotizing collective vision.

Feature image: Stephen Hawking