“ZONA FRANCA – Free Zone” Pierfranco Argentiero’s Beaches on Display at st-Art, Amsterdam
This July, st-Art Amsterdam proudly presents ZONA FRANCA – free zone, an exhibition featuring 28 striking photo-collages by Italian photographer Pierfranco Argentiero. Curated and produced by NUMM Contemporary Art, this collaboration marks the first showing of Argentiero’s iconic beach series in the Netherlands — and a unique cultural exchange between Casale Monferrato and Amsterdam.
Spanning over two decades of meticulous work, ZONA FRANCA captures the often-overlooked poetry and absurdity of beach life. These collages are more than photographic compositions — they are visual essays on human behavior, memory, and collective identity.
Argentiero, a professional photographer since 1985, is best known for his commercial work with major Italian textile brands such as Missoni, Bellora, Gabel, and T&J Vestor. Alongside this, he has nurtured a parallel path in fine art photography, driven by personal reflection and a philosophical approach to image-making. “Photography,” he says, “is curiosity, concept, reflection, and selection — a tool for never ceasing to search for oneself.”
In ZONA FRANCA, Argentiero isolates archetypal beachgoers — the street vendor, the sun-shielding woman, the players, the daydreamers — placing them against a neutral, sand-colored background that removes context and unifies the human subjects into a shared narrative. The result is a surreal, timeless beach with no visible sea, yet saturated with its memory and meaning.
As writer Carolina Saporiti notes in the exhibition catalog:
“It doesn’t matter where these moments were captured. The beach, as we know it, is a social construct — a place of leisure and escape that’s been shaped since the 1930s. Removed from their historical and geographic context, these figures become symbols. They are our mirror. We recognize ourselves in them.”
Through irony and precision, Argentiero constructs a visual anthropology of modern summer life — both celebratory and critical. His ZONA FRANCA is a “free zone” in every sense: a space beyond time, borders, and expectations, where memory, identity, and absurdity collide.
This exhibition also marks the beginning of NUMM Contemporary Art’s autumn season, with more cultural initiatives planned in the Monferrato region and beyond.
Admission: Free
Dates: July
Venue: st-Art, Kinkerstraat 2, Amsterdam