Guido Argentini
PROFILE
Guido Argentini studied medicine at the University of Florence before turning to photography. After being based in Los Angeles for many years, he relocated to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2022.
Argentini’s practice centers on the female body, exploring its relationship to image through light, shadow, reflection, and form. Drawing inspiration from classical sculpture, Renaissance art, cinema, and the sensual, European sensibility inherited from figures like Helmut Newton, he approaches the human figure not simply as a subject, but as a sculptural and symbolic presence shaped by light.
In his seminal Silver series, inspired in part by Rodin’s late watercolors and Brancusi’s highly polished bronze sculptures, Argentini covers the bodies of models and dancers in silver pigment. Diminishing the immediacy and individuality of the skin, he transforms the figure into a “living sculpture.” This investigation into the boundaries between photography and sculpture, figuration and abstraction, subsequently evolved into works utilizing mirrors, reflections, light, and shadow to examine the shifting relationship between reality and illusion.
Narrative is equally central to Argentini’s photographic language. He conceives a single photograph as a moment suspended within a larger, unseen story, inviting the viewer to imagine what precedes or follows. In his diptychs, this approach expands through the juxtaposition of the female figure with landscapes and still lifes. Meaning emerges from the associations, tensions, and symbolic relationships created between the imagery.
Moving between reality and imagination, Argentini continues to develop a distinctive visual language that uses the body as a departure point for exploring presence, space, and fiction.
BIOGRAPHY
1966 Born in Florence, Italy
2022– Based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Solo Exhibitions (Selected)：
2023 “Whisper of Florence” Sho+1, Tokyo
2022 “EROS GUIDO ARGENTINI Selected Works from 1996” Sho+1, Tokyo
2013 Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo
2012 Unix Fine Art, Miami, USA
2011 Photographers Limited Editions, Wien, Austria
2010 Young Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2010 Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo
2009 Brucie Collections, Kiev, Ukraine
2009 Photo Art Research, Florence, Italy
2007 Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo
2006 Galerie Reygers, Munich, Germany
2006 James Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2006 Camera Work, Berlin, Germany
1998 Todd Kaplan Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1996 Todd Kaplan Gallery, Los Angeles, California
Group Exhibitions (Selected)：
2026 “All Human” Preiss Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria
2025 “Holiday Edition” Preiss Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria
2025 “A Nostalgic Summer” Preiss Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria
2025 “Chromatic Bloom: A Summer Prelude” Preiss Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria
2024 “Masters of Sparkle: X-Mas 2024” Preiss Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria
2024 “FALLing into Focus, Preiss Fine Arts” Vienna, Austria
2024 “Sun-kissed: Celebrating the Masters of Fine Art Photography” Preiss Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria
2024 “ICONIC Photography, CHROMA GALLERY” New York
2024 “Spring Fling: Vintage Classics & Modern Icons, Preiss Fine Arts” Vienna, Austria
2023 “X-MAS CATALOGUE: Strictly Iconic, Preiss Fine Arts” Vienna, Austria
2023 “Spring Fever, Preiss Fine Arts” Vienna, Austria
2023 “Between Scenes ―Opening the Gate―” Sho+1, Tokyo
2022 “Group Show 2023 WINTER to SPRING” Sho+1, Tokyo
2022 “Illusion of Reality” GINZA TSUTAYA BOOKS FOAM COMTEMPORARY, Tokyo
2022 “X-MAS Artful Giving, Preiss Fine Arts” Vienna, Austria
2022 “The Woman : An Art Icon” – Bel-Air Fine Art @POPA MUSEUM, Bel-Air Fine Art, Porrentruy, Switzerland
2021 “Artful Giving” Preiss Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria
2021 “Diversity of Perspective” Sho+1, Tokyo
2019 Macek Gallery Launch Exhibition, Macek Gallery, Florida, USA
PUBLICATIONS
2018 Eros, DAMIANI
2013 Argentum, teNeues
2012 Shades of a Woman, DAMIANI
2007 Reflections, teNeues
2005 Private Rooms, teNeues
2002 SILVEREYE, teNeues
OFFICIAL LINK