Daniele Tamagni: Style is Life

Style is Life is the first comprehensive retrospective of the Italian photo artist Daniele Tamagni (1975–2017). Documenting street styles and fashion trends, Daniele Tamagni captured the pride and joy of urban communities across the globe to whom fashion is a way to position oneself in a reimagined society. Collecting images of the Congolese sapeurs, Botswana’s Afrometal scene, Bolivian female wrestlers, young dance crews of Johannesburg and more, Style Is Life brings together renowned and unpublished photographs that remind us of the subversive and political value of fashion.

“With every frame of Daniele’s, it’s clear he wasn’t a photographer simply capturing moments detached from the environment or people. He immersed himself in each instant, uniquely positioning himself as a foreign photographer who valued building relationships with subjects.” – from the preface by co-curator Aïda Muluneh

This book, packed with images and texts, traces Daniele Tamagni’s extraordinary professional and personal experience in the world of photography. His innovative eye has combined photojournalism, street photography and fashion in a style that has become his trademark. By documenting the trends of “street fashion”, he has testified to its political, sometimes subversive value, immortalizing the pride and joy of urban communities for whom “style is life”, as the title itself says. In Daniele’s photographs, clothes become identity.

Style Is Life is a choral book in which his photographs speak, but also the various precious personal and professional testimonies. The monograph presents 150 photographs arranged according to the different reportages that the artist has produced over the course of his life.

“…Daniele’s images have won a World Press Photo Award, inspired fashion designers such as Paul Smith and Stella Jean, convinced the demanding jury of the ICP Infinity Award and seduced artists such as Solange Knowles.” – from the preface by co-curator Chiara Bardelli Nonino

Daniele Tamagni studied cultural heritage and obtained an MA from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy. His move towards professional photography occurred in 2007, after receiving the Canon Young Photographer Award, followed by the ICP Infinity Award in 2010 and World Press Photo Award in 2011. As his numerous accomplishments and publications prove, in a short period of time he became a leading photographer.

His fight with leukaemia marked the last four years of his life. He died prematurely in 2017 at the age of 42. The Daniele Tamagni Foundation has been established to preserve, value and promote his memory and artistic legacy and to encourage the development of young, talented photographers who explore African identity and engage with the continent or its diaspora.

Explore his work on the website danieletamagni.com and on Instagram: @danieletamagnifoundation

The exhibition, Daniele Tamagni: Style is Life, is currently on show at the Palazza Moranda in Milan, Italy (9 Feb – 1 April 2024).

Style is Life  
Photographs by Daniele Tamagni
Edited by Aïda Muluneh, Chiara Bardelli Nonino, Curated by Giordano Tamagni
Texts by Emmanuelle Courrèges, Angelo Ferracuti, Alain Mabanckou, Lekgetho Makola, Véronique Marchand, Gianfranco Maraniello, Gerardo Mosquera, Aïda Muluneh, Chiara Bardelli Nonino, Tommaso Sacchi, Waridi Schrobsdorff, Kwanele Sosibo, Giordano Tamagni
Designed by Tomo Tomo
Kehrer Verlag, 2024
Hardcover with tipped-in plate, 256 pages, 148 ills, English/Italian
24 × 32 cm
RRP €58

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