Gabriele Basilico (Milan, August 12, 1944 – Milan, February 13, 2013) was an Italian photographer.
After graduating in architecture, he devoted himself to photography with continuity. The shape and identity of the city, the development of the metropolis, the changes taking place in the post-industrial landscape were his favorite areas of research. Considered one of the masters of contemporary photography, he was honored with many awards and his works are part of important public and private collections in Italy and abroad.
“Milan Portraits of Factories” (1978-80), was his first long work having as main subject the industrial suburbs and was his first exhibition held in a museum (1983, PAC, Milan). In 1984-85 with the “Bord de mer” he participated, as the only Italian in the DATAR Photographic Mission, the French government’s mandate to an international group of photographers to represent the transformation of the French landscape.
In 1991 he participated in the Mission To Beirut, a city devastated by a 15-year civil war, a “shocking” experience he told in the series “Basilico Beyrouth” (1994). Since then, Gabriele Basilico produced and participated in numerous documentary projects in Italy and abroad, which resulted in exhibitions and books.
Basilico always intertwined his tireless photographic investigation on the morphology and the transformation of the city and the contemporary landscape with seminars, lectures, conferences, and discussions conducted through writing. The volume “Photo Books: 1978-2005 ” (2006) summarizes and illustrates all his personal books and many of the most important collective books.