Giovanni Gastel Untitled, Vanity Fair -2010, 1998

Giovanni Gastel

Giovanni Gastel was born in Milan on December 27th, 1955 to Giuseppe Gastel and Ida Visconti di Modrone, the last of seven children. In 1967, at the age of twelve, Gastel starts showing his artistic vocation, joining experimental acting companies, for which he acts until the age of seventeen. At the same time, he develops a passion for poetry and at sixteen Cortina publishes his collection of poems named Casbah. His first contact with photography takes place in the 1970s. The turning point takes place in 1981 when he meets Carla Ghiglieri who becomes his agent and introduces him to the world of fashion. Following the appearance of his first still-lives on the magazineAnnabella, in 1982, he starts collaborating with Vogue Italia the magazines Mondo Uomo and Donna. His references are, for his still-lives, Pop Art, which he could see on display at Rotonda della Besana since the early 1970s, and the photographic works of Irving Penn. Around the mid-1980s, he founds Gastel&Associati with Angelo Annibalini and Uberto Frigerio, with which he intends to promote the introduction into the professional world of young photographers, either grown in his studio, or met during his many workshops. His active commitment in the world of photography brings him closer also to the Associazione Fotografi Italiani Professionisti, of which he was President from 1996 to 1998. The artistic consecration takes place in 1997, when the Triennale di Milano dedicates him a personal exhibition, curated by the contemporary art historian Germano Celant, in which about 200 pictures, evidence of his long and prolific career, are exhibited. His professional success consolidates in the following decade, up to the point in which his name appears on specialized magazines together with those of Italian photographers such as Oliviero Toscani, Giampaolo Barbieri, Ferdinando Scianna, or next to those of Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Mario Testino and Jurgen Teller.