The exhibition consists of more than seventy photographs, along with a sculpture of the great master of black-and-white photography; it demonstrates the great diversity of his groups of works, whose impressive clarity and precision immediately catch the viewer's eye.

For the Berlin showing at the Neue Nationalgalerie the artist is planning an entirely different presentation of his work that will highlight relations to the Berlin collections (Gemäldegalerie, Alte Nationalgalerie) as well as the architecture of the Mies van der Rohe building. After Berlin, the show travels to Düsseldorf, Salzburg and Lucerne.

Sebastiano Luciani, later named del Piombo, is one of the lesser known, but no less outstanding artists of the Italian Renaissance. The painter, originally from Venice, was once a serious contender to Raphael when it came to winning favour with the Roman public and was also befriended with Michelangelo. In his atmospheric paintings he manages to fuse the Venetian colours of his masters Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione with the monumentality of the Roman school.

Sebastiano del Piombo was the name given to him when Pope Clement VII awarded him the lucrative papal office of keeper of the leaden seals in 1531. His work encompassed altarpieces, few mythological scenes and most of all portraits. This loan exhibition, first shown in the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, includes paintings on wood, canvas or slate, as well as drawings, which were often used as preparatory sketches for frescoes. Alongside works by Sebastiano himself, drawings by Michelangelo and some Spanish descendants of his style are also on view.

This exhibition brings together a rich and varied treasure trove of nearly 400 works, on loan from collections in 13 countries, with the aim of reconciling the legend of Babylon with its history. Spanning five millennia (from the end of the 2nd millennium B.C. to the beginning of the 20th century), it pays tribute both to the historical and cultural importance of this ancient city and the way in which its reality was later transformed into the mythical Babylon.

The oldest textual reference to Babylon dates back to the period of Sumer’s archaic dynasties: in ancient Akkadian, the governor of a place called Bar-bar—a phonetic retranscription of Ba(b)bar or Ba(b)bal, probably ancient Babylonian script—was described as the builder of a temple to the god Marduk. Thus around 2500 BC there probably existed a city, populated by Akkadians, that was the capital of a principality. Nothing more is known, because these ancient levels of Babylon are inaccessible to archaeological excavation. The temple in question was probably located on the east, or left, bank of the Euphrates, the site of the current ruins.

The name Babylon appears three hundred years later, on a clay tablet, written in Sumerian ideograms, KÁ.DINGIR.KI, to be read in Akkadian bāb-ilu or bāb-ilim, which means “Gate of (the) God(s).” This document refers to the construction of two temples in Babylon. These twin temples, part of the same complex, were dedicated to two warrior deities, namely Anunîtum, daughter of the moon-god, and the Akkadian god Il-aba: “Year in which Shar-kali-sharri laid the foundations of the temple of Anunîtum and the temple of Il-aba, in Babylon.”

After the fall of Ur, almost all trace of Babylon is lost for one hundred years (2000 to 1890 BC). The political situation in Mesopotamia in the late twentieth century BC was marked by a weakening of the power and political influence of the Isin dynasty. A few chiefs of sedentary Amorite tribes took advantage of the situation by capturing towns in northern Babylonia. The leader of one of these groups, Sumu-la-El, seized possession of Babylon in 1894 BC. It was probably his successor who founded the first Babylonian dynasty around 1880 BC.

The great Akkadian monarchs, Sargon and his grandson Naram-Sin, long served as the model of a heroic king. The depiction of Naram-Sin leading his troops to victory over the people of the Zagros Mountains on his victory stela inspired later all-conquering monarchs when it came to pose and military dress (a short garment with long front panel). Old Babylonian royal victory stelae were influenced by the heroism of the Akkadian empire, while the position of the arms and weapons of the king of Akkad were imitated by the heroic warrior-kings depicted on Old Babylonian seals.

The first section of the exhibition (=Truth) exposes the roots of our Western culture by looking at the archaeological remains of Babylon, thus revealing what lies behind the legends. This section centres around the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way of Babylon, one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World. Over 800 objects are exhibited, among them statues, reliefs, votive offerings, architectural fragments, and documents.

The second section of the exhibition (=Myth) regards Babylon as a metaphor for the dark sides of civilisation - repression and the lack of freedom, terror and violence, hubris and madness. In European art and culture, the myth of Babel is closely related to mankind's primal fears. Here, visitors experience the mythical story of the rise and fall of Babylon as a city of sin and tyranny, as the site of the confusion of tongues and the metropolis of eternal apocalypse.

Pergamonmuseum
Am Kupfergraben 5
10117 Berlin-Mitte

Paparazzi photography is an aggressive form of photojournalism, particularly today when the famous names in show business are hunted down and pushed into dangerous situations for the sake of getting the most interesting picture possible.

In the 1960's and 1970's, the "classic" era of the paparazzi, the combination of voyeurism and exhibitionism, whereby photographers lie in wait for the stars to make their public appearance, was less strident and loud. Inventiveness, speed and persistence, along with a touch of cheekiness--put to use at the Cannes Film Festival, or on the Via Veneto in Rome--was usually enough to guarantee good results.

The name of Fellini's character Paparazzo from the film La Dolce Vita has since been adopted as the standard term for these kinds of photographers. The character was modeled after a real person: Tazio Secchiaroli, who later rose to become Fellini's set photographer. In the late 1950's and early 1960's Secchiaroli and his colleagues waited nightly, with camera and flash in hand, for prominent victims on Rome's Via Veneto. About the same time, Edward Quinn and Daniel Angeli were very active in the South of France, mainly on the Cote d'Azur, and often worked with very long lenses.

The exhibition "Pigozzi and the Paparazzi" concentrates on snapshots and portraits of famous people from this era and offers us a glimpse of how the mythic aura of the stars was dismantled by showing them going about their daily lives. We encounter Alain Delon and Prince Charles, Mick Jagger and Woody Allen, Sophia Loren and Grace Kelly, Brigitte Bardot and Gina Lollobrigida at parties, on the street, at the beach and so on. Most of these pictures were taken "from a safe distance" with the photographer going unnoticed. Nevertheless, once in a while a fight would break out between the hunter and the hunted when a photographer got too close or was discovered in his hiding-place. For example, the photographer Ron Galella lost several teeth when he suffered a well-aimed punch from Marlon Brando; thereafter he often wore an American Football helmet any time he expected to come across Brando at a public event.