The Passion of Italy

My exhibition in Rome at the Museum of Contemporary Art opened December 3, 2011, and will run through April 29, 2012.   
As part of the exhibition,  I was commissioned to photograph locations all over Italy. 

Here are a few of those pictures:

 There is no more magnificent absurdity than Venice. To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, 
but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.
- Alexander Herzen

Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.
- Denis Diderot

When you do things from your soul, you feel a
river moving in you, a joy.
― Rumi

Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.
-  Georg Wilhelm

Whether you say Gioia di Vivere in Italian, or Joie de Vivre in French, or other expressions which
attempt to capture a passion for life,   you know the difficulty
of expressing the intangible in words.  I hope these pictures reflect the vibrant joy of life in Italy.

To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.
― Mark Twain

My mind to me a kingdom is,
Such present joys therein I find,
That it excels all other bliss.
-  Sir Edward Dyer

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. 
- John Keats

Nothing in the world that you ever heard of Venice, is equal to the
magnificent and stupendous reality.
- Charles Dickens

Media:

http://www.vogue.it/en/people-are-talking-about/art-photo-design/2011/12/steve-mccurry

http://www.video.mediaset.it/video/tg5/tg5_la_lettura/265739/steve-mccurry.html