At 18:00, On Thursday 2 December, the exhibition Mick Jagger. The photobook will be inaugurated at Fondazione Forma per la Fotografia.

After Rencontres d'Arles, for the first time in Italy, a retrospective will be held devoted to a man who not only made the history of rock but is also recognised as an icon of style and lifestyle.

A face that has changed, like his chameleon-like personality; brazen-faced and physically nimble with sensuous lips: more than anyone else, he is the rock icon who has left his mark on the music of the last forty years, inspiring the imagination of generations of fans. Mick Jagger – The Photobook presents a series of 70 portraits by leading photographers who, from the very beginning of his career and right through to the present day, have met him, photographed him and documented his very distinctive face and his ability to always come across as new, different and upstream.

“Mick Jagger is universal. His very particular face has made him the archetype of the rock star” this is how the curator François Hébel, director of the Festival Rencontres d’Arles, describes the essence of this exhibition. “This collection of images is first and foremost a photographic project. Not only does it tell the story of Mick Jagger's career, it is also the history of 50 years of photo portraits; the physicality and notoriety of a face becomes a challenge, inspiring the photographers to go beyond simple documentation. Through images created by the most important photographers, we can see how a bond was created between personality and image, a bond that is now permanent”.

From the first photographs taken in the sixties by Goodwin, Mankowitz and Périer as well as Cecil Beaton's experiments up until the very recent portraits by Annie Leibovitz, Karl Lagerfeld, Anton Corbijn, Mark Seliger and Bryan Adams, we can witness the metamorphosis that has created the aesthetics of rock and not only.

The exhibition, produced by Forma and Rencontres d’Arles, is curated by François Hébel while the catalogue is published by Contrasto.

Photographs by: Bryan Adams, Brian Aris, Enrique Badulescu, Cecil Beaton, Simone Cecchetti, William Christie, Anton Corbijn, K. Cummins, Sante D'Orazio, Deborah Feingold, Tony Frank, Claude Gassian, Harry Goodwin, Anwar Hussein,Annie Leibovitz, Peter Lindbergh, Gered Mankovitz, Jim Marshall, David Montgomery, Terry O'Neill, Guy Peellaert, Jean-Marie Périer, Michael Putland, K. Regan, Herb Ritts, Ethan Russell, Francesco Scavullo, Norman Seeff, Mark Seliger, Dominique Tarlé, Pierre Terrasson, Albert Watson, Robert Whitaker, Baron Wolman.