Alberto Terrile

Alberto Terrile (born 11 March 1961) is an Italian-born photographer.

Mostly known in France, Italy and the US for his work-in-progress about angels, he is also active in publishing, theatre, music, cinema and advertising.

He specialises in black-and-white portraits, for which he has won several prizes; his most acclaimed works include live performances of Corrado Rustici, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Ute Lemper.

Personal expositions of his pictures have taken place in Milan, Rome, Berlin, Paris, Avignon, Chicago, Montreal and Toronto.

Born in Genoa, Italy, 11 March 1961, of a middle-class family, Terrile shows a strong interest in the figurative arts since he is a child.

His years until a teenager are spent in his home town, located on the sea and a prominent port of the Mediterranean, and Iola di Montese, a small village in the Apennine Mountains at the border of Tuscany and Emilia Romagna, where Terrile's family has a countryhouse.

The stark cultural and human contrast between the two places lies at the heart of his later artistic development; it is also probably at this time that Terrile develops his love for wild, uncontaminated nature (especially woods and mountains) and solitude – an attitude which is clearly visible throughout his work as a photographer.

At the age of 14 Terrile enters the Artistic High School Nicolò Barabino of Genoa, officially as an apprentice painter.

His natural attitude to painting and arts in general is not apparent, at least to his teachers, to the extent that in his first year he is suggested to move away from the artistic career and "find a good job instead."

Nevertheless, after the high school and with the support of his parents, Terrile enters the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti (Ligurian Academy of Fine Arts) in Genoa, where he further pursues his interests in visual arts and music.

At the Academy, Terrile uses his fellow coursemates as models.

The general atmosphere of rebellion against the rules and the desire to experiment lead him to realise, among others, a series of colour portraits shot in low key, almost monochromatic, but with overtly red lips or blue eyes.

Bodies and faces are crammed into a single frame as if immersed in water or boxed in a fish tank.

The set called Fluttuare ("To float") is a good example of his early style.

In these years his activity is extremely heterogeneous, ranging from analytic painting (a branch of abstract painting) to pop music and colour photography; among his early works, of remarkable value are Calligrafie ("Callygraphies"), Tracce ("Traces") and Segni ("Signs"), three series of portraits realised from 1977 to 1979 on large vertical surfaces, tape rolls, in video or with other heterogeneous materials.

These series are finally collected in a work called Quelle improbabili immagini ("Those unlikely images") exposed in Genoa, Grosseto, Cosenza, Bari.

In 1979–1980 he also writes an experimental score for alto sax for the contemporary composer Luca Barbieri-Viale called Cromofonie.

The score will be played in Genoa, Milan and Certaldo, near Florence.

By 1984, after successfully completing the Accademia, Terrile has found his way into photography and starts an apprenticeship in Milan, as the third assistant of Paolo Gandola, then a young but already renowned fashion photographer.

During the 80s Milan develops its character as the Italian capital of fashion and finance; money becomes more and more the main engine of human relationships and corruption spreads at all levels of the local government.

Not incidentally these years mark the rise of Silvio Berlusconi as a building and television entrepreneur.

In a then famous commercial ad of the Ramazzotti liqueur, Milan is dubbed Milano da bere ("the Milan you can drink") with reference to the endless possibilities offered by the rampant capitalism, a lifestyle akin to that of the US, and so far unknown in Italy.

Terrile's time in Milan is anything but an easy one.

His simple, almost naïve attitude to life and people, and his total disregard of money, do not match the high style of the city.

Terrile has little or nothing to do with Milano da bere, and after a few years he is back to Genoa.

The remarkable technical teachings of Gandola are all he is left with, plus a sheer rejection of fashion photography and all that revolves around it.

In an interview shortly after his coming back, he says, not without a certain pride: "I find it unbearable that just four or five big photographers are freely allowed to give their vision of things [...] no more American faces! [...] beauty can as well be found on a bus, you need not look for it in Los Angeles or London."

In the same interview Terrile declares his love for cinema, which is just about to start shaping his style forever.

Although he is only 25 years old, his artistic vision is already clear: "Cinema is, for me, Truffaut, Arthur Penn, Altman, Wenders [...] Randomness is a relatively important component of my works, but it is always under strict control [...] A photographer is always an artist and a craftsman at the same time."

This last statement denotes the will to overcome the well-known problem every artist has to face in the beginning, namely that art does not pay.

As a matter of fact, from 1985 on Terrile will be living off his activity as a pro photographer.

Terrile's return to Genoa marks the beginning of an all-round photographic activity.

During these years he keeps in close touch with the vibrant artistic underground scene of Genoa.

He attends artists of all sorts also outside the Academy; in particular, he develops a close friendship with the sculptor Lorenzo Garaventa.

While in Garaventa's workshop, Terrile shoots a number of portraits of the artist himself, obtaining one of his most remarkable early pictures (1985).

Particularly evident in this work is the use of natural light (in this case, coming from above) and the violent, sort-of expressionistic use of contrast obtained in the camera obscura.

(An almost manic attention to printing is one of the long-standing traits of his work; Terrile has many a time acknowledged Stefano Grondona for teaching him his printing skills.)

His commercial activity is initially deeply interwoven with music, especially live and studio performances.

The list of artists he cooperates with includes at least Pierangelo Bertoli, René Aubry, Louis Winsberg, Marc Berthoumieux and Bob Wilber.

Terrile also specialises in album and book covers, establishing links with the major Italian book editors (Giulio Einaudi Editore, Zanichelli, Mondadori, Costa&Nolan).