Giovanni Gastel was a well-known photographer from Milan, he started his career in the late Seventies in Milan in a basement: a romantic start to a brilliant career and all thanks to the meeting with Carla Ghiglieri, it took her little time to recognize the value of Gastel and thus work with him. The first photo published with his name is still life in the magazine Annabella, this caught the attention of Flavio Lucchini, working with Vogue Italia at the time, who wanted him along with his wife Gisella Borioni when they founded Edimoda. From this moment, Gastel became the name of fashion photography and its path began taking shape, first with Donna and then with Mondo Uomo, these Lucchini’s magazines were founded to change the language of fashion in the early Eighties, a decade marked by experimentation and growth for Italian fashion houses and their publishing industry. Between the Eighties and Nineties Giovanni Gastel began to carry out advertising campaigns for the most important Italian fashion houses including Versace, Missoni, Tod’s, Trussardi, Krizia, and Ferragamo; his success also resonated abroad bringing him to Paris, where in the Nineties he worked for Dior, Nina Ricci and Guerlain, and then also to the United Kingdom and Spain. Gastel transfers into his pictures the rarest quality that a photographer can have: respect for the subject he captures through the target. He knew how to grasp the beauty of everything on which his gaze rested: selective, indulgent and never strict.

Giovanni Gastel, Winnie Harlow

Giovanni Gastel pursues his artistic research beyond his fashion photographs: in 1997 Triennale Milano dedicated him to a remarkable retrospective curated by Germano Celant. A real consecration that makes him one of the masters of italian and international photography, together with Oliviero Toscani, Giampaolo Barbieri, Ferdinando Scianna, Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Mario Testino e Jürgen Teller. Among the photography genres, the portrait is the most explored by Gastel to which he dedicates the last years of his career. The MAXXI National Museum pays tribute to the photographer in 2020 with an exhibition of 200 portraits, researches and reflections that portray characters from different fields: culture, design, art, fashion, music, show business, and politics.

Giovanni Gastel, Germano Celant

Triennale Milano remembers Giovanni Gastel until 13th March 2022 with two exhibitions: The People I Like in partnership with MAXXI National Museum, and I gioielli della fantasia in collaboration with Contemporary Photography Museum, in which Gastel was part of the board of directors.

After graduating from language high school, love for art led Giulia De Sanctis (Turin, 1998) to obtain Communication and Enhancement of Artistic Heritage’ degree at the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin. She collaborated with art galleries in Turin as an assistant, dealing with the cataloging of the works, the preparation of exhibitions and the press office. She collaborates actively with various magazines and web publications of the art sector.