AMC, - AMC2 journal Issue 9. Amore e piombo. The Photography of extremes in 1970s Italy

Background information

"Published to coincide with the exhibition 'Amore e Piombo: The Photography of Extremes in 1970s Italy' at the 2014 Brighton Photo Biennial (from 4 October to 2 November 2014), Issue 9 of Amc2 looks at the tumultuous era of Italy's Years of Lead – a period when bombings, kidnappings and assassinations became the standard currency of Italian politics. The catalyst for this era of terror was the growing strength of the Italian Communist Party as an electoral force – a development opposed within Italy by the extremes on both left and right, and externally by the USA and the Soviet Union. At the dark heart of things were the murky manoeuvrings of clandestine groups within NATO, the CIA, the Italian secret services and the P2 Masonic Lodge. Outrages perpetrated by one political group were presented as the acts of another, giving rise to the Italian concept of dietrologia – the idea that surface explanations are rarely the real ones. The press photographs collated for 'AMC2 journal Issue 9. Amore e piombo. The Photography of extremes in 1970s Italy' from the archives of Rome-based agency 'Team Editorial Services' reflect the manifold aspects of the period, as the photographers oscillate between pursuing film stars at play and capturing the violence on the streets against a backdrop of industrial unrest and a sexual revolution embracing free love, divorce, abortion, feminism and gay rights. Far from offering answers or uncovering definitive truths, the photographs reveal only tantalising fragments of evidence about this most turbulent and tangled decade, while the true puppet-masters and string-pullers remain just out of frame." (© AMC, 2014)

Content

This AMC issue, 'AMC2 journal Issue 9. Amore e piombo. The Photography of extremes in 1970s Italy' by The Archive of Modern Conflict, contains many image examples of the Roman photo agency 'Team Editorial Services', from a time when stars, bombs, free love and murders were part of the everyday life of photo reporters in Italy. At the end of the paperback edition, there is an explanatory text by Roger Hargreaves and Federica Chiocchetti, as well as a precise listing of the archive shots used for the magazine.

Zusatz Additional information

• Winner of The Kraszna-Krausz Best Photography Book Prize 2015
  Shortlisted for Les Rencontres d'Arles Historical Book Award 2015