In these days, we all have our daily lives upset: limitations apply on our work, our habits and our small and large pleasures such as embarking on trips and visiting exhibitions. Now that we can no longer go in person to see many of these art, photography and architecture exhibitions, at least we can replace the visit by leafing through the right book or catalogue.
Here are five splendid catalogues for five exhibitions that now you cannot visit in person.
Gio Ponti. Loving architecture. (Catalogue of the exhibition at Maxxi in Rome)
He was one of the architects who contributed most to change and modernize Italy in the twentieth century, so much so that his creations and ideas are a mirror of the evolution of our country. both for design and architecture. From the ceramics developed for Richard Giniori in the 1920s to the founding of Domus magazine in 1928, from the “La cornuta” coffee machine in 1948 to Pirelli Tower (also called “Pirellone”) in Milan in 1960.
The catalogue – with archival materials, models, photographs, books, magazines and objects – illustrates Ponti’s entire work, also thanks to the contribution of young generations of architects and Made in Italy design lovers.
Exhibition catalogue (English edition)
Elliott Erwitt. Family. (Catalogue of the exhibition at Mudec in Milan)
He is one of the great names in 20th century photography: photographer of the Magnum agency, Erwitt attracts the attention of Robert Capa with his first photo reports, who launches his career: he will soon become a famous collaborator of Life magazine and one of the most awarded photographers in the world.
The catalogue and the exhibition focus on Erwitt’s works dedicated to the family: a very multifaceted catalogue made up of situations, people but also animals (his famous dogs) that show the multifaceted variety of what family is today, beyond stereotypes and ideological barriers.
Exhibition catalogue (English edition)
Jacques Henri Lartigue. The invention of happiness. Photos. (Catalogue of the exhibition at the Tre oci in Venice)
An exhibition and a catalogue that collect the largest retrospective ever made in Italy on the French photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue: 120 images, of which 55 unpublished, all from Lartigue’s personal photographic albums, and to which are added archival materials such as books, magazines of the time, a slide show with album pages, three stereoscopies with Parisian landscapes.
Who was Lartigue? Throughout his life Lartigue was a talented “amateur” of photography: having a high social background, he never needed to make photography a profession but his technique and talent make him equally one of the most gifted (and long-lived) photographers of the last century.
As clearly comes out in this catalogue, which crosses its work for all its temporal expansion: from the “proustian” Paris of Anna Pravidina’s Belle Epoque, caught in fur while walking with her dogs, to the 1920s family portraits of his son Dani, his brother Maurice and his muse-wife Madeleine Messager. From the shots documenting the fashion of the roaring 60s as in “Florette’s hands” to the photos on the set of the movie “The city of women” made by Fellini in 1979.
Exhibition catalogue (English edition)
De Nittis and the gaze revolution. (Catalogue of the exhibition at Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara)
De Nittis was an Italian painter known above all in the circles of Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century for his elegant and fashionable compositions. His “gaze revolution” (which gives the title to the exhibition and the catalogue) was that of his colleagues of the Impressionist era – Manet, Degas and Caillebotte – and which he embraced, elaborating it (also) thanks also to his relationship with photography.
A collection of works in which you can admire the dazzling effects of his native country, the misty skies of the Île de France, or the London mists. An exhibition that aims to read in a new way De Nittis’ career by emphasizing the originality and the innovative charge that derives from the fundamental exchange with the new photographic medium, which in the second half of the 19th century stimulated the artists to find new expressive formulas.
Exhibition catalogue (Italian edition)
Cesare Colombo. Photographs 1952-2012. (Catalogue of the exhibition at the Castle in Milan)
Cesare Colombo was one of the singers of Milan: active in the 50s and 60s on various photographic magazines (first on “Photography” and “Ferrania” and then on the monthly magasine “Camera”), in the mid-60s he opened his studio and devoted himself mainly to advertising and industrial photography. The city of Milan has always been the centre of his work and his passion as a photographer.
It is no coincidence that the exhibition and its catalogue present over one hundred photographs from 1952 to 2012 dedicated precisely to Milan and its multiple cultural, economic, political and social aspects. The book also includes an in-depth essay by the curator Silvia Paoli, a chapter on the layout and graphics of Italo Lupi, and a section that includes the biography, the bibliography, and the list of exhibitions, movies and audio-visuals on the theme.
Exhibition catalogue (Italian and English edition)
Cover image:
“La Baule”, 1979 Photograph by Jacques Henri Lartigue
© Ministère de la Culture (France)
Target Point, Italian Ideas