Within the frame of activities of the already mentioned GNAM Festival, the cultural event promoted by City of Parma and Solaris Fondazione per le Arti, and dedicated to the celebration of Gastronomy in Contemporary Art.

As final show within the Festival, Academia Barilla will be hosting a collection of photographs by Marcello Geppetti (24 photographies total). The exhibition, which opened to the public last April 16, will be accessible at the Academia Barilla Culinary Center until November 16, 2008.

With over a thousands of unforgettable shots of famous celebrities capturing moments of the Italian “Dolce Vita” of the 50’s, ’60’s and 70’s. A unique, unrepeatable, marvelous period for post-war Italy, and Rome in particular, immortalized by the special touch of Geppetti.

(Jane Fonda and Roger Vadim dining in Rome - photo: Marcello Geppetti)

Celebrities, politicians, actors, artists, everyone had to pass through Rome - at that time, the centre of the Universe, of the Dolce Vita - and stop by the social scene of Via Veneto, Via Condotti and Piazza di Spagna. These places are those where everything happened around a drink, a banquet, a dinner, a party, a cocktail, a concert. And everyone who wanted to be seen and be part of this glamour life needed to pass by, to stop for a dinner at the Grotte del Piccione, or at Meo Patacca Restaurant, for a drink at Club 84.

(Alberto Sordi entertaining friends after dinner in Rome - photo: Marcello Geppetti)

Marcello Geppetti, one of the founders of Café de Paris, made the history of photography. For 40 years Geppetti was in every place and in every event. Thanks to his beautiful images depicting big celebrities around a table, in happy and vital portrait of simple gestures such as eating and drinking, he contributed to create the myth around that dreamlike period of time of Italy, giving eternity to these marvelous Dolce Vita characters and memorable moments.

(Lauren Bacall enjoying an ice cream in Rome - photo: Marcello Geppetti)

Claudia Cardinale, Liz Taylor, Vittorio Gasmann, Richard Burton, Brigitte Bardot, Kirk Douglas, Audrey Hepburn, Jacqueline Kennedy, James Stewart, Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren, Totò, Fellini, De Sica, Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Marcello Mastroianni - just to name a few of the many celebrities that Marcello Geppetti knew and captured in his photographies during their stay in Italy.

(Audrey Hepburn shopping for food in Rome - photo: Marcello Geppetti)

At fashion stores, while working on movie set, along Rome’s street, at restaurants, everywhere. Geppetti with his special touch added a deep sense of humanity to celebrities’ pictures. David Schonhauer, director of “American Photo Manager” recently highlighted the talent of Marcello Geppetti and defined him a real artist of the shot, capable of unveal the human side of celebrities.

(Monica Vitti and Alain Delon dining in Rome - photo: Marcello Geppetti)

The name of Marcello Geppetti is mentioned in the history of photography next to big names such as Man Ray, Richard Avedon, Cecuil Beaton, Andy Warhol, and his photographies have been published by major international magazines headings such as Life, Photoplay, Daily Mirror, Bunte, El Pais and Washington Post - now they are available at the Academia Barilla Culinary Center, don’t miss this exhibition!

The address to the Academia Barilla Culinary Center is Largo Piero Calamandrei, 3/A (c/o Barilla Center), 43100 Parma, Italy. Please call +39 0521 264060 for further information and opening hours. Driving directions? Please use the Google map here below.

Last October the City of Parma hosted the first International edition of GNAM, an event focusing on Gastronomy in Modern Art. GNAM needed a context of excellence in food culture, and the choice to locate GNAM in Parma and its territory in the heart of the Italian Food Valley has certainly been not casual.

In this context, Academia Barilla, as the point of reference and most credible source for Italian gastronomy, couldn’t miss the opportunity to collaborate with the organizers to ensure the success and gastronomic relevance of the GNAM Festival.

The program created for the multidisciplinary event offered different artistic exhibitions in various venues all around the city of Parma and its province. This represented a new and innovative approach to the art of eating, exploring all political, cultural and social implications lying beyond the food’s concept, through the reading of contemporary arts.

In-between its opening and closing dates (October 2007-January 2008) GNAM celebrated gastronomy represented through expressive modern and contemporary art forms such as photography, painting, installations, sculpture, theater and cinema.

GNAM’s wide-ranging program started last October with the main event “Foodscapes – Art & Gastromony” (ended January 2008), curated by Lóránd Hegyi, Director of the Saint-Etienne Modern Art Museum in France. Foodscapes displayed artwork by more than 40 international artists exploring different concepts of food and eating. “Feeding is private and collective at the same time, something strictly personal and simultaneously public,” said Hungarian curator Lóránd Hegyi.

Another of the top events in the GNAM calendar was “Hungry Planet”, a photo exhibition of the work of US photographers Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio, who traveled across five continents and 24 countries photographing families and exploring differences in their dining rituals.

The program includes many other interesting appointments, and International celebrity guests, including French actor Gérard Depardieu, cookbook author Eve Ensler, movie director Emir Kusturica, and many more VIP guests.

We couldn’t cover this Parma event last winter, as our blogging and editorial team spent the last months mostly in the United States. We now have the opportunity to blog about the event, thanks to one of the GNAM Festival’s collateral events, whose opening last week at the Academia Barilla Culinary Center brought back the entire gastronomy / art symbiosis in Parma.

We will take a little more time tomorrow to talk about “Dolce Vita“, a photo exhibition open to the public at the Academia Barilla Culinary Center (free entrance), where thousands of unforgettable shots of famous celebrities, taken by “Master Paparazzi” Marcello Geppetti, captured precious moments of the Italian “Dolce Vita”, the golden age of Italian post-WWII, between the 50’s and the 70’s.

Feel free to pay a visit at the Academia Barilla to see the exhibition, that will be open to the public until November 16, 2008. Directions to the Academia Barilla Culinary Center in Parma? Check out the Google Map here below.

Do you remember the book Parma, a Capital of Italian Gastronomy, by celebrity Chef and cookbook writer Giuliano Bugialli?

We quote the cookbook very often on our blog not only because Chef Bugialli is a good friend of Academia Barilla, but also because the cookbook itself is published from Academia Barilla Editions, and is available at the Academia Barilla online store.

Chef Bugialli’s cookbook won last year the Gourmand World Cookbook Award 2007 in the Best Italian Corporate Book category, and this year has been shortlisted for Best in the World in the Gourmand Awards, same category Best Corporate Book, this time global.

The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards is an initiative launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time in 1995. After more than 10 years the Awards, annual celebration of “those who cooks with words”, has become one of the most important events in the industry, gathering a crowd of professionals from all over the world in cookbook business, including several universities and cookbook libraries.

Since 1999 there has been an awards category for books on Italian cooking. This year in London there were 845 cookbooks from 107 countries competing in 40 categories for Best in the World.

The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards are big especially in Europe, but are very relevant also around the world. In 2006 the awards visited Kuala Lumpur and the year after moved to Beijing. Last April 13 the 2008 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards were held in London, UK.

Chef Bugialli’s Parma cookbook is a great book to discover both the gourmet and the cultural souls of Parma, the Capital of the Italian Food Valley. Rich in content as well as recipes, the cookbook is also illustrated by great photos (including all the images in this blog post) by photographer Andy Ryan.

Unfortunately, Giuliano Bugialli’s cookbook didn’t make it for the final award gala at London’s Olympia Theatre, the competition was tough with other very good 12 books from other counties in the same category.

Nevertheless, Academia Barilla has been awarded for the work carried on by BIGAB, Academia Barilla’s Gastronomic Library in Parma. As Gourmand World Cookbook Awards Vice President Bo Masser said:

“The creation of the Gastronomic Library of Academia Barilla and the mission of Academia Barilla are very impressive“.

The Jury honored Academia Barilla with a “Special Award” and the following mention:

“The work of Academia Barilla in Parma is very important. It deserves this award with International recognition for its leadership for understanding and taking action for world culinary culture“.

Wow, that’s a huge honor!

Please join the Italian Food Lovers blogging team in a standing ovation for the fellows at the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library: good job, BIGAB! Compliments!

And compliments to Chef Giuliano Bugialli too for the Italian Gourmand Cookbook Award won last year!