UNISEX – Fetishism and Lemon Soda

Jacopo Benassi was born in La Spezia, Italy (1970), where he lives and works.

Jacopo Benassi research became wider over the years and it includes portraits and self-portraits, performances, painting, nature, while maintaining, however, as a sort of constant, a very intimate and introspective way of taking pictures. He has produced numerous publications including books and fanzines.

Despite the innumerable experiences, Jacopo Benassi has managed to transversally crossing different fields and moving between heterogeneous disciplines, the way in which he shoots remains very faithful to the approach with which he began: the depth of field is cancelled by the light of the flash. Benassi has made this characteristic of rapid and instinctive photography of underground cultures which often requires flash and short exposure times to portray clandestine and lightless situations his signature style, thus giving his research a raw character and powerful.

With Jacopo Benassi, photography becomes sculpture, not only because the flash cuts out the silhouettes of his subjects with precision, but because the shot itself enters into dialogue with the artist’s frames, assembled by the artist himself, which thus make each work unique and unrepeatable. Benassi never ceases to suggest that the will to create would not exist without the will to destroy: frames burned or made with accepted wood and cut glass, a tribute to imperfection that allows us to measure the complexity and roughness of things. Assemblies of photographic, material and pictorial elements find their stability thanks to the grip of an industrial anchor belt. With them Benassi speaks to us with a disarming courage of fragility and the constant search for balance.

Recent shows include: PAC Milan (2026); 14th Taipei Biennial, Taiwan and Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, Arles (2025); Jacopo Benassi Libero!, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa (2025); Sàlvati Salvàti, Francesca Minini, Milan (2024); Autoritratto Criminale, GAM, Turin (2024); The autonomy of nature,Franciscaines Museum, Festival de photographie, Deauville (2023); Serenata Agitata, Una Boccata d’Arte, Gardone Riviera (2023); Matrice, Fondazione Carispezia, La Spezia (2022); Past, Francesca Minini, Milan (2021); Vuoto, Centro Pecci, Prato (2020); Crack, CAMERA, Turin (2019); Bologna Portraits, Palazzo Bentivoglio, Bologna (2019).