Photographer Gabriele Basilico’s view of Italian cities on show in Seoul

The COVID-19 pandemic has made international travel virtually impossible, but there are ways yet to explore foreign lands and take in the view.

Gabriele Basilico, a renowned Italian photographer whose works feature the country’s cities and architecture, provides an intimate look at how cities in Italy have changed in the contemporary era by training his eyes on their architecture and their streets.

“Gabriele Basilico, Photographs of Italy,” the artist’s first solo exhibition in South Korea, running at the KF Gallery in central Seoul, features 55 black-and-white photographs taken between 1978 and 2010. The powerful photos of the people, the streets and the architecture of Rome, Milan, Venice, Trieste and Florence show how the cities evolved over time.

The majority of the photographs at the show are from his 1978-1980 collection, “Milan, Portraits of Factories,” which captures the factories on the outskirts of Milan, giving a glimpse of Italy’s socioeconomic transition to the postindustrial era.

Basilico, who was born in 1944 and died in 2013, gained international recognition as a documentary photographer, taking photographs of ancient and modern architecture spanning the urban, peripheral and industrial spheres. Though he studied to become an architect, he took a different career path after he picked up a camera in his early 20s.

The exhibition, which runs through Dec. 2 at the KF Gallery in central Seoul, is co-hosted by the Korea Foundation, the Embassy of Italy in Korea and the Italian Cultural Institute.

Visitors who want to see the photographs in person are required to make reservations online at the Korea Foundation’s official website. In addition to the gallery exhibition, a virtual exhibition was launched Tuesday on the Korea Foundation’s official YouTube channel.

By Park Yuna (yunapark@heraldcorp.com)