Genova 1981—1983

Antonio Amato

http://www.yardpress.it/genova-1981-1983/

Genova 1981-1983 is the first monograph by Italian photographer Antonio Amato. The volume contains 112 images (all previously printed, photocopied and scanned for offset printing) that guide us through the Genoa punk scene of those years, telling about attitude, habits and gestures of people who have been part and created the scene. “..the Genoese scene was founded in 1980 and in 1981 it was already drammaticaly different: first, each of us was punk on his own account, then we started to meet in the street and recognize each other.” Post Brigate Rosse, post terrorism, post ’77 movement Genoa, a city where new generation, who no longer identified themselves into the Communism of their fathers, where the road is a place of socialization and designated to big laboring march protests but also a space for clash and guerrilla. This was the city context between 1978-1979 – and as it happened to many girls and boys in the whole peninsula, thanks to the RAI television programmes broadcasted at the end of ’77 – where the punk made its entrance: “..years, in short, where everything happened in Genoa even if there are practically no testimonies of that scene which was so alive”.

“Amato gives us back a raw, full-frontal body of work where he doesn’t use to put the formal speculation first, his interest is to describe something is absolutely part of his life, here all is tender, wild and engaging. “The ones that committed to punk in that first confused historical phase were absolutely influenced by what came from America and England–nihilism, art schools, Situationism–at the same time, however, they brought with them the ideological (although non–political) experience acquired within the Movement, the working Autonomy, anarchism and squats. Many Genoese punks grew up in the realm of the extra–parliamentary left wing, and it was when they decided to leave politics for this new subculture that the first large (in some cases very violent) fractures with their former fellows begun. Just to be clear, the first Genoese punks were not accepted nor by their companions or by the fascists.” Diego Curcio

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22,5x33cm 234 pages Uncoated paper 80gr Soft cover Paperback twist-stitching Offset Ita/Eng

Limited edition 300 copies