Italian Disco Visual Stories: The Work of Mauro Balletti

An overview of the work of the photographer behind some of Italy’s most notable albums

Italian music exists in synergy with visual culture, as the most prominent artists always crafted a very distinct visual identity for themselves. And while costume designers, set designers, and TV show or music-video directors largely contributed to this component, we cannot understate the importance of photographers, animators, and illustrators.

The case of fine artist and photographer Mauro Balletti is emblematic. His lens captured the likes of Italy’s most prominent music artists, in a series of portraits and full-figure shots that openly reference cinema and art history, in line with his own artistic background. In his recent book I protagonisti della musica italiana, we are offered an overview of his opus.

His is the cover of Loredana Bertè’s 1982 album Traslocando, where she pairs a nun’s habit with glam-rock makeup, complete with a heavy smokey eye and red, lacquered lipstick.

His portraits of Ornella Vanoni, mainly the ones from 1974 shot around the album A un certo punto, convey an aristocratic demeanor, emphasized by the warm color palette he chose and which is reflective of Vanoni’s coloring.

Giuni Russo (read about her in our “Summer Hits” feature), whose featured photo is the cover of the 2021 tribute album Aliena: Giuni dopo Giuni, appears in her cosmic-queen mightiness, with beams shooting from her eyes, in line with the image she cultivated alongside her collaborators Giusto Pio and Franco Battiato.

The photographs of Mia Martini, shot between 1976 and 1981 for her album Mimì, focus on the singer’s eyes: whether they’re downcast, fixed onto the viewer, or captured in a longing stare, they become the focal point of the portraits, which are otherwise intimate and pared down.

Patty Pravo, shot for the 1990 album Pazza idea eccetera eccetera, becomes the embodiment (if not the precursor) of 1990s minimalism: while she had always paraded high-octane costumes that spanned genres such as “Old Norse Priestess” and “Creature from Outer Space,” on this occasion she wears only a V-neck sweater paired with ankle-length pants and a pared-down makeup look, with her platinum hair as the main accessory. Still, her otherworldliness remains, albeit in a more metaphysical sense. “Born a diva, fell on Earth, like David Bowie,” reads Balletti’s liner note.

Mina (read about her collaboration with Cristiano Malgioglio here and her disco tracks here) remains his most prominent muse, subject, and canvas. After all, she took Balletti under her wing when he was only 20 years old. We see her in a stark black-and-white expressionistic mirror reflection for the cover of her 1984 album Catene; with her braided head juxtaposed to a buff male torso for the 1987 record Rane Supreme; in a Harpo-Marx-inspired getup (think light-colored, curly hairdo and cigar) for the 1973 album Frutta e verdura; and with eye makeup that evokes 1920s modernism for the cover of the 1983 album Del mio meglio n. 7. When he resorts to color photography to portray her, he chooses to fully embrace surrealism: she is a bearded lady in one portrait—namely, the cover of her 1981 album Salomè—and the figurehead of a steampunk ship in another, the 2024 album Gassa d’amante. While not featured in the book, the cover of Mina’s 1979 album Attila is a digital alteration by Luciano Tallarini of a portrait by Balletti, with her mouth and face smeared with a rainbow-colored popsicle. It ended up being displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In the book, he also offers an anecdote regarding a session he held with Raffaella Carrà (read about her music here, her costumes here) in 1979: after a lengthy shooting session, he invited her to just pose against the studio’s backdrop for a close-up, only to be met with, “The shooting’s over.” “I was about to photograph the real Raffaella—Raffaella Pelloni. She did not want to show that part of her; she always kept her close to herself,” writes Balletti. Still, the portraits shot on that occasion clearly juxtapose the overall exuberant image of Carrà—mainly conveyed through her theatrical outfits and signature hairstyle—with the depth of her gaze, which is further emphasized by the doll-like eye makeup chosen for the occasion.

Debating what constitutes the “self” in a series of portraits and shots of artists and performers takes us deep into philosophical weeds, but what is certain is that Balletti’s photos captured the essence of whatever self the chosen artists wanted to inhabit at the time of the photo sessions.

I protagonisti della musica italiana is available on Amazon (EU)