From a project of street photography carried out in Milan between 2012 and 2015
The photographic project “Fie” has recently returned to the center of public debate after resurfacing online and sparking a wave of strong criticism. It consists of a series of roughly three thousand images shot in urban settings, attributed to Ray Banhoff (legally Gianluca Gliori), in which people (particularly women) are photographed without their awareness as they go about their daily lives on the street and on public transport. The material, collected into a self-published book, is now the subject of both ethical and legal contestation over privacy violations and non-consensual distribution.
The story resurfaced because the photographer, on June 21st, posted a video—later removed—in which he once again discussed the project. On social media, the debate centered above all on the line between street photography and violation. This video interview was captured and shared in part by the Instagram profile «AesteticaSovietica», which put forward a critical reading of the issue, later joined by lawyer and activist Cathy La Torre. “This isn’t art, it’s abuse and a violation of several laws,” the lawyer notes, having also urged any women who recognize themselves in the photos to report it.
Reached by phone after the case exploded, Banhoff, who has signed several photographic projects of an entirely different nature over the years, defends himself by saying that AesteticaSovietica extracted just a few seconds from a 40-minute interview, and that his explanations about street photography technique were a reference to the famous photographer Bruce Gilden. He adds that being portrayed this way now exposes him to threats on social media: “I’ve been treated like a maniac and now people are writing horrible things to me, but I am an artist. As for these supposedly stolen shots, I challenge anyone to say they felt harmed by their image in those photos. I don’t believe I’ve committed any crime.”
Fie - Ray Banhoff 2012-2015
Fie - Ray Banhoff 2012-2015
One element that makes the affair even more controversial concerns its initial reception. At the time of its first release, the project had in fact been welcomed and covered by some outlets and platforms in the cultural and photography sector as an exercise in street photography and a portrait of urban daily life, with a largely descriptive reading. Among these, Rolling Stone Italia had also contributed to a narrative that emphasized the project’s aesthetic and research dimension, without placing the question of how the images were produced at the center. At that stage, the problematic dimension of the repeated depiction of the female body and the absence of consent was largely absorbed into an aestheticizing or documentary narrative, one that tended to privilege the image over the conditions of its production.
Over the past 11 years, the country’s sensitivity around the issue of consent has changed: it has evolved toward greater attention to all those situations in which people’s images are captured without consent, sexualized, and circulated online.
Looking back, what at the time could have been read as research bordering between art and privacy now appears as a device that probes, in depth, the very categories of contemporary photography and the mechanisms by which the cultural system legitimizes, normalizes, or erases questions of consent. It is precisely this asymmetry that emerges so forcefully in this case.
Fie - Ray Banhoff 2012-2015
Photography has always maintained an ambiguous relationship with reality. It arises from a taking, separating something from the flow of the world and handing it over to an image. Street photography, in particular, often thrives on this uncertain margin, where public space makes possible a visual encounter with passersby, cities, unprepared gestures, figures who enter the frame without having built any explicit relationship of posing or consent with the photographer. Dismissing this entire tradition as predatory would be historically inaccurate. From Walker Evans to Helen Levitt, from Garry Winogrand to Vivian Maier, all the way to Sophie Calle, the street has been a fundamental visual laboratory for reading modernity—its rhythms, its solitudes, its crowds. Even today it remains a terrain that tests ethical and political tensions against artistic practice.
*All images on this blog are used for educational and critical purposes only. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners and authors. The gallery remains at the disposal of the rightsholders for any corrections, specific citations, or immediate removals upon request.
