Aldo Baratti Biography
Aldo Baratti was an Italian photographer. Present in Asmara, Eritrea, probably as early as the 1920s, Baratti was certainly part of that series of Italians who emigrated to the eastern part of the Horn of Africa from the end of the 19th century, with a truly important numerical increase precisely between the 1920s and Trenta, through the propaganda of the Fascist Regime. Baratti is without a shadow of a doubt among the promoters of the "new" means of mechanical reproduction in Eritrea where, in fact, since the 1930s there has been a notable local concentration of photographers, including non-Italians. Aldo Baratti was registered as early as 1931 in the Register of companies present in Eritrea, with his photographic studio and trade in photographic items based in Asmara. A photographer therefore not of war, but of reality, that "exotic" reality so loved in Italy and which Baratti exported as an integral part of the Italian dream in Africa. In this context, his photographic series of the Black Venus, created in the years 1930-35, is still undoubtedly Baratti's best-known photographic concept today. In addition to this series, Baratti also specializes in more, let's say, social representations, always to be connected to the curiosity of the West and of the public of the motherland, through the creation of photographs taken in the surroundings of Asmara and depicting scenes of daily life and work.
