Alfredo Jaar

Inferno & Paradiso

Curated by Paolo Woods and Kublaiklan
Produced for Cortona On The Move 2025 by Associazione Culturale ONTHEMOVE and co-produced in collaboration with Photo Elysée, Museum for Photography, Lausanne

The exhibition Inferno & Paradiso examines and overturns the notion that the continuous bombardment of images of human suffering has an anesthetizing effect on us. The problem is rather that we see bodies “that do not reflect the gaze that we direct at them.” Alfredo Jaar, one of the most socially charged artists of our time, has conceived an original production for COTM in which 20 of the most extraordinary contemporary reportage photographers have been invited to select two of their photographs from their archive: the most excruciating and the one that gave them the most joy. The photographs are presented as slide projections in an immersive installation; here photographers will guide us like Virgil in Dante’s Divine Comedy, to introduce us to the knowledge of Hell and Heaven.

With photographs by: Lynsey Addario, Motaz Azaiza, Veronique De Viguerie, Maxim Dondyuk, Abdulmonam Eassa, Donna Ferrato, Johanna-Maria Fritz, Olivier Jobard, Bülent Kilic, Alice Martins, Lorenzo Meloni, Finbarr O’Reilly, Darcy Padilla, Pablo Ernesto Piovano, Hannah Reyes Morales, Lindokuhle Sobekwa, Brent Stirton, Anastasia Taylor-Lind, Laetitia Vançon.