The Photographers’ Gallery has become the first port of call for photography exhibitions in London. One of the current exhibitions focuses on the work of Letizia Battaglia who was born in Sicily in 1935 and died there in 2022.
Sean Sheehan
A fearless campaigner for the rights of women and prisoners, a journalist and, since the age of 40, a photographer. Battaglia is best known for her eye-witness photos depicting the brutality of Mafia violence in the 1970s and ‘80s but her work and worth is not confined to this.
Our perceptions of Mafia violence are shaped by movies, like Scorsese’s “Goodfellas, casino, gangs of New York” and Copolla’s three “Godfather” films and they succeed in being enjoyable to watch however appalling the bloodshed. Battaglia also holds our gaze but in a different way. The gangsters that come into the frame of her camera – being arrested, sitting in a courthouse or lying dead on a street – are devoid of glamour.
What comes across, instead, is their ordinariness, the banality of their presence, and unlike the movies, pity is evoked when their victims – legal professionals, police, politicians and citizens caught in crossfire –are shown lying in their own blood or slumped in cars, robbed of dignity.
Not that her photos lack drama, as in her shot of a magistrate on the roof of a courthouse surrounded by four bodyguards with revolvers ready in their hands.
Many magistrates were gunned down by the mafia and although the magistrate in the picture looks relaxed he carries the knowledge that his life is in danger.
One of her most poignant shots is a portrait of Rosaria Schifani, wife one of the three police escorts murdered along with a judge, his wife and two of his colleagues by the Corleonesi Mafia in 1992.
A mobster would later come to describe how the assassination was celebrated with champagne (the kind of scene that a Scorsese or Coppola would seize on) but Battaglia gives us the widow of Vito Schifani at her husband’s funeral, her face half shrouded in shadow. The photo gains from being in black and white, colour would be a distraction from stark reality and an eternal truth about life and death. The exhibition’s title includes the word ‘love’, indicating that Battaglia should not be quickly slotted into a category with Weegee, the New York crime photographer in the 1930s and ‘40s.
She is interested in people, their capacity for joy and not just grief, as shown in a couple embracing on a popular beach close to Palermo and pictures of people attending festival events.
Life went on around the judges and others who dared to carry on with their work while others plotted their murder and the body count increased.
“Letizia Battaglia: Life, love and death in Sicily” is at The Photographers’ Gallery until 23 February 2025. Admission is £8.50/ £6 and entry is free after 5pm on Fridays when the gallery is open until 8pm).
(Photos © Courtesy Archivio Letizia Battaglia)
.jpg)
