A lecture by Juan Hita Bueno, art historian and photographer
Friday, 23 October - 3.00 p.m. / 3.30 p.m.
Fortezza da Basso, Spadolini Pavilion, Theatre Area
Art historian and self-taught photographer, for more than a decade Juan Hita Bueno has focused his gaze on the Alhambra, the most important and best-preserved architectural complex in Andalusia, Spain. His passion for the site dates back to his childhood, when he used to go with his family to the Fortaleza Roja, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Since 2006, he has dedicated himself to a project aimed at immortalising that fortified microcosm at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in Granada.
Art was the horizon to which Juan Hita Bueno initially looked as a scholar. Soon, however, he turned to photography as that medium allowed him to explore the infinity of the Alhambra - as in a journey through Jorge Louis Borges' Labyrinths. According to him, that evocative place arouses emotions as its shapes and colours seem to appear as if by magic as well as mysterious lights and shadows that evoke the Thousand and One Nights. Moreover, ‘any season of the year is a suitable time to photograph the Alhambra and its surroundings, where one can always find a place to take retreat and enjoy an immersive experience’.
Indeed, that ‘immanence’ perceived by Umberto Baldini when, with him and Rolando Bellini, he visited the Alhambra in 1995 transpires from Juan Hita Bueno's images.
For this Spanish author, photography is a tool for the critical analysis of art in a manner that refers back to the thought of Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti.
