THE EXHIBITION OF THE MILANESE PHOTOGRAPHER, INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED FOR HIS INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES DERIVING FROM THE STUDY OF PAST METHODS, IS TO KICK OFF ON MONDAY 7 SEPTEMBER AT 6PM IN THE SALA RISTORANTE OF BOCCONI

“The ancient is more present than the present” Schad wrote. Something on a similar note might be said while observing these photos by Luca Carrà, who portrays the Milan of today, the capital of Expo 2015, as if we were at the Universal Exposition of 1906, the one that celebrated the Sempione tunnel.

“Through a specific technique” says art historian Elena Pontiggia “Luca tones down, hides, caresses, by surrounding the image with a soft, silver light. And he plunges the contemporary metropolis, with all its trivial and predictable signs, in a timeless present”.

Starchitects’ proud buildings, billboards and traffic signs scattered haphazardly, mendacious propaganda messages, crazed gridlocks: everything acquires a disorienting nobility, a metaphysical sweetness, as in a suavely magical realism. The opposite of Pop Art.

Milan is often said to be grey, thus insulting both the city and the color. But the artist does justice to such a mental color, by rediscovering its nuances, its balance, its intensity.
Silver and slate, ash and pewter, shadow and fog: black and white turns into an unlimited palette, although the photography delightedly remains faithful to itself, without invading the field of painting, nor chasing the aestheticizations of pictoricism.

The exhibition, which will be inaugurated on Monday 7 September at 6pm in the Sala Ristorante of Bocconi University, via Sarfatti 25, will remain open until 6 November, from Monday to Saturday, 9am – 12pm. The entrance is free.