Daniele Tamagni Style Is Life brings together the most important works of an artist who skilfully blended photojournalism, street and fashion photography with a unique and recognizable style: Daniele Tamagni (Milan, 1975 - 2017).

Already successfully presented in Milan in 2024, the exhibition is now being shown in the city closest to the artist’s heart: Trento, the Milanese photographer’s second home; and in Dakar, one of his work locations, at the Museo Théodore Monod d’Art Africain - IFAN and the new headquarters of the Italian Cultural Institute.

The exhibition at the Galleria Civica di Trento is curated by Gabriele Lorenzoni. It is based on the original project developed by Aïda Muluneh and Chiara Bardelli Nonino and realised in collaboration with the Fondazione Daniele Tamagni.

Daniele Tamagni (Milan, 1975 - 2017) began taking photographs as an adult and immediately garnered great acclaim and recognition, such as the Canon Young Photographer Award in 2007, the ICP Infinity Award in 2010 and the World Press Photo Award in 2011.

His shots celebrate the styles and trends of street fashion, bearing witness to its political, sometimes subversive value: clothing as an affirmation of identity.
Combining his vast knowledge of art, a passion for fashion and a love for the African continent, Tamagni used photography as a tool for social investigation. Devoid of any rhetoric or prejudice, he recounted the authenticity and pride of urban communities in African and Latin American mega-cities, places where fashion becomes a means of positioning oneself in a reinvented society. A bridge between distant worlds and a powerful symbol of emancipation, his aesthetic research reshapes the collective narrative.

Through 80 photographs organized into 6 themed sections, the exhibition at the Galleria Civica presents the artist’s most important works.

The undeniable highlights of Tamagni’s work are the Congolese sapeurs of SAPE (Society of Entertainers and Elegant People), better known as the dandies of Bacongo, a district of Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo.

The series is internationally renowned thanks to Gentlemen of Bacongo - a 2009 publication that inspired the Spring/Summer 2010 collection of the famous British fashion designer Paul Smith and the work of world-famous designers and artists such as Stella Jean and Solange Knowles. According to a recent article in Vogue Italia (30 April 2025), Tamagni’s work was even reflected in the theme of the last MET Gala, Super Fine: Tailoring Black Style, which celebrates black dandyism.

In Trento, the sapeurs are exhibited alongside Botswana metalheads and cholitas, Bolivian wrestlers.

Tamagni turned back to street photography again in 2015, with his portrayals of young urban crews in Johannesburg, which sprang up in a highly repressive political environment.

Finally, a section of the exhibition is dedicated to Dakar Fashion Week 2012. Here Tamagni captures the intimacy and spontaneity of the backstage at the fashion shows and workshops in Senegal, with behind-the-scenes documentation of what has now become a major international fashion event.

The images in the exhibition and many other previously unknown photographs are reproduced in the monograph, Daniele Tamagni Style Is Life, printed a few months ago by Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg. In addition to essays by the two curators of the exhibition, the volume includes contributions by Alain Mabanckou, Angelo Ferracuti, Gerardo Mosquera, Emmanuelle Courreges, and Lekgetho Makola, and testimonials by Alessia Glaviano, Duro Olowu, Michele Smargiassi, and Deborah Willis, tracing the artist’s professional and personal history.

 

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