Fan Ho exhibition at Palazzo Barolo
Date of the event:
The photography exhibition dedicated to Fan Ho, staged at Palazzo Faletti di Barolo in Turin, passed 13,000 visitors by 2 November 2026 in a month and a half since opening, with more than a thousand copies sold of the catalogue published by Dario Cimorelli Editore. The exhibition, open until 10 January, is the first major Italian retrospective dedicated to the Chinese photographer and is produced by Ares in collaboration with the Blue Lotus Gallery of Hong Kong [1].
The exhibition
The exhibition brings together more than a hundred images chosen by curators Elisa Maupas and Sarah Van Ingelgom, spanning street photography, abstraction and scenes of suspended everyday life. The shots are dominated by black and white and by a use of light that sculpts the subjects, creating shapes and defining volumes through the architectural openings it filters through [1].
Fan Ho
Fan Ho (1931-2016) is regarded as one of the leading Asian street photographers and is remembered as the chronicler of Hong Kong between the 1950s and 1960s. Born in Shanghai, he moved with his family at the age of 18 to the city he would go on to immortalise in his photographs, producing the core of his work before he turned 28. For his pursuit of the perfect moment in composing an image he has been called the “Cartier-Bresson of the East” [1].
Widely awarded at home and abroad, Fan Ho also worked in cinema, first as an actor and then as a director, retiring from the profession at 65. According to the curators, his photographs portray a community in transformation, shaped by everyday gestures, work and resilience: porters, street vendors and children playing in the street are among the recurring figures in his visual storytelling [1].
Technique
Fan Ho exploited backlighting and chiaroscuro effects to heighten the smoky atmosphere of the streets and bring out white silhouettes or dark shapes from the shadows. He would follow up each shot with darkroom work, retouching and cropping the negative, to bring out the image, remove superfluous elements and heighten the tones [1].
Sources
- ANSA Piemonte — 2 November 2026