Massimo Vitali: Beach & Disco

Steidl Collectors Books This new series from Steidl is dedicated to keeping in print previously published books by important artists like Lucinda Devlin, Karl Lagerfeld, Gerard Malanga and Massimo Vitali--and at an affordable price.

From atop a homemade platform 12-to-15-feet high, Massimo Vitali observed and photographed his Italian compatriots on the beach, in the disco, at airports and in shopping malls. In the process he created razor-sharp, detailed photos that consciously borrow from genre painting of the 19th century. Vitali isolates concrete moments in anonymous clusters of people and directs the observer's gaze to diverse slices of reality. Again and again, individual characters and narrative moments evolve out of the coincidental meetings. In capturing and bringing together these fleeting images, Vitali simultaneously delivers sociological findings about the society in which he lives.