Gusmano Cessareti
Gusmano with Iggy Pop, 1985
Gusmano Cesaretti, is a self-taught photographer & artist from Lucca, Italy.
A resident of Los Angeles since 1969, Cesaretti has been capturing the sound, light, and emotional tenor of his adopted city through the lens of his camera.
One of the first photographers to document the East Los Angeles street culture as early as 1970, Cesaretti immersed himself in the Chicano lifestyle. His photographs of this era celebrated a sub-culture that had rarely been captured before. He curated numerous exhibitions, beginning with projects at his gallery Cityscape Foto Gallery, founded in Pasadena, California in 1977.
His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution (Washington D.C.) & the Museum of Contemporary Art - MOCA (Los Angeles).
His work was featured in the 2010 groundbreaking show Art in the Streets at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), in Los Angeles, in which he was also actively involved in arranging major works by Los Angeles graffiti writers & dedicating a section of the exhibit to The Chosen Few motorcycle club.
From 2011-2014 he shot the documentary film Take None Give None, a portrait of The Chosen Fewmotorcycle club based in South Central Los Angeles.
In 2014 he began publishing Los Angeles FOTOFOLIO, an underground journal of exclusively black and white photographs by well-known and emerging photographers to visually stimulate those who had not been exposed to photography as an art form. Distributed as a free publication anywhere from institutions to housing projects in East Los Angeles and South Central, Los Angeles FOTOFOLIO has made its way into Europe and Asia.
Gusmano has played a vital role in creating the look & feel for many Hollywood films—working closely with directors Michael Mann, Tony Scott & Marc Foster.
Exhibitions
GUSMANO CESARETTI:
“My Journey with Maria Sabina”
SEP 14, 2024 - OCT 26, 2024
Eastern Projects is proud to present Gusmano Cesaretti’s second SOLO SHOW with the gallery: “My Journey With Maria Sabina” is a portfolio of over 50 photos taken in 1982 by Cesaretti during a “chance” healing encounter with the Mexican healer.
Step into the intimate world of Maria Sabina, a revered Mexican shaman, through the lens of photographer Gusmano Cesaretti. A mystical essence of Sabina’s life and work, which Cesaretti documented over an extended period of personal collaboration.
The exhibition brings these powerful photographs to life, showcasing Sabina in moments of ritual and reflection. Each image reflects her wisdom, spirituality, and the sacredness of the life she led in the remote Sierra Mazateca mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. Cesaretti’s work not only sheds light on the shamanic traditions of the Mazatec people but also invites viewers to engage with the layers of meaning and mysticism that shaped Sabina's profound legacy.
Maria Sabina (1888-1985) was a healer, curandera, and Shaman who lived her entire life in a modest home in the “Sierra Mazateca” in the state of Oaxaca. Her practice was based on the use of various native species of psilocybin mushrooms which she used in ceremonies to cure hundreds in her community throughout her lifetime. This association with the Psilocybin mushroom resulted in an unlikely late in life counterculture notoriety that brought her into contact with the likes of John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and Mick Jagger.
In recent years, there’s been a push in the United States to legalize the use of Psilocybin mushrooms for medicinal use to treat depression and other medical issues. These have been in use by native cultures throughout the Americas for thousands of years. The audience will experience the photographer’s personal, healing journey and see why there’s a rising popularity in its medicinal use.
View Available Works
Eastern Projects Gallery is part of PST ART as a Gallery Program Participant . Returning in September 2024 with its latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, this landmark regional event explores the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit pst.art
GUSMANO CESARETTI:
“ALONE IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS”
June 24, 2023 - August 12, 2023
“Guardi il mondo con occhi innocenti e tutto è divino.” Fellini. Look at the world with innocent eyes and everything is divine.
Show consists of over 60 photos from his various series, shot in the last 50 years, including original prints developed in the 1970’s from his “Klique” series, “Street Writers”, “Folsom Prison”, and “Maria Sabina”.
His camera belongs to places where cameras aren’t allowed. Jakarta. Port-au-Prince. Bangkok. Colón. Juárez. Huautla de Jiménez. But always the return to Los Angeles and its innumerable subterranean originalities. For the artist whose raw material is the ignored and unloved, this is the land of endless gifts.
To each community, a unique set of markings, talismans, robes, and communions. Not only the Anigaduwagi of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but the prostitutes of Vila Mimosa. The sunburned weightlifters of Old Folsom. The tattooed insurgents of 18th Street. The cadets in Daryl Gates’s paramilitary police academy. The hillside cholas of City Terrace.
Worlds away from the cathedrals of his native Tuscany, he becomes a photographer of religion in its deepest form. From the Latin religiō (1st century B.C.): that which is prohibited, taboo; the quality evoking awe or reverence; a painstaking observance of rites.
Every photograph is a sculpture, as textured and holy as the sidewalks the artist travels to find the gold beyond gold. Crumpled newsprint is more exquisite than virgin paper. A wall disfigured by graffiti is purer than one untouched. These are his convictions.
He speaks through the images. They contain his portrait. Absolute proximity. Imperishable curiosity. An unconditional absence of fear. He demands we leave the gallery and meet the unfamiliar. He knows that true love lives in the shadows.
View Exhibition Part One
View Exhibition Part Street Writers
STREET WRITERS
A Guided Tour of Chicano Graffiti
Street Writers collection documents the Chicano Street Culture. Gusmano Cesaretti’s historical black and white photographs documents Graffiti in Northeast Los Angeles in the pioneering seventies.
