Mario Carnicelli : American Voyage

The colors, textures, people, fashions and street life of ’60s America

American Voyage is a beautiful portrait of 1960s America from Italian photographer Mario Carnicelli (born 1937), recently rediscovered after 50 years and published here for the first time. Featuring over 150 color and black-and-white images, this stunning work transcends other books on similar subject matter; the photographs are truly compelling, drawing the reader/viewer into Carnicelli’s world.

In 1966, Mario Carnicelli won first place in a national Italian photography competition sponsored by Popular Photography magazine, Mamiya and Pentax. The prize was a scholarship to photograph America. Carnicelli approached the country as an outsider, and yet his perspective managed to capture the essence of the American experience. He was fascinated by the almost reckless freedom offered by America, with its mix of cultures and traditions, its fashion and individuality; at the same time he was aware of a pervading loneliness and rootlessness in people separated from family and clan. His photographs are a captivating, optimistic and contemplative look at the complexity of ordinary people living the American dream.

[Carnicelli's] images comment on the complexities and contradictions of the American Dream, and how the pursuit of it was underpinned by loneliness and displacement. (Wallpaper*)

Carnicelli focused his lens not on the skyscrapers but on what was happening at street level: on commuters, builders, shopkeepers, passersby. (Kathryn Bromwich The Guardian)