Keeping Up With Milano's Art: January 2024 Issue
A note from the editor:
Dear reader, as you may realize, several of the exhibitions mentioned in this issue of Keeping Up With Milano’s art have come and gone. In the commotion of the January session, things were blown out of the water and swept under the rug, not to be retrieved for quite some time. Nevertheless, it’d be a shame to let this wonderful piece not see the light of day.
As Emanuele gears up for the final leg of his academic journey in Berlin, fear not, for this column won’t disappear into the techno underground with him. Instead, it's undergoing a facelift, introducing not one, but two new voices -- Flavia and Lisa. We’re here to keep you in the loop and are dedicated to continue the dynamic takes on the events of Milano’s art scene.
Now, delving into Milan’s art buzz echoing through the month of January. As the days grow shorter, we encourage you to momentarily put aside your study routine for a rejuvenating break nourishing both body and soul. Trust us, it’s worth it!
The first exhibition that I (Flavia) would like to suggest to you all is Sebastião Salgado’s Amazônia at Fabbrica del Vapore. You already know Salgado from Luca’s tale earlier this year, of his dense career and mesmerising photographic projects, so I hope you’ll be happy to hear of the opportunity to see his work in Milan (the fact he’s popped up twice in one year really shows how much it’s worth a visit)!
Amazônia, Installation view. Photo: Flavia Dal Brollo
The converted train and tram factory that is Fabbrica has been reimagined to evoke the environment of the Amazon rainforest, immersing visitors into its otherworldly reality – a very intriguing curatorial treatment of the space. As you traverse the forest via Salgado’s lens, a soundtrack of rustling leaves, animal calls, and tumbling water accompanies your journey. Majestic landscapes hang at different heights throughout the gallery, recalling the falling vegetation of the forest. Hut-like structures reference indigenous houses known as ocas, each containing a glimpse of the life of the numerous indigenous groups inhabiting the Amazon. Through portraits of named individuals and families, snapshots of the crafts and rituals of the communities, and studies of the sublime – at times almost apocalyptic – territory, Salgado transports us across the world and gives us a truly holistic view of life in the jungle.
Sebastião Salgado, Yanomami Territory, State of Roraima, 2018. Caption: “Strong winds from the Atlantic reach the continent and blow across the Amazon rainforest and over the Mount Roraima area, in the far north of Brazil. The wind concentrates the clouds, already heavy with recent evaporation, and creates a “flying river” that will carry moisture thousands of kilometers.”
This view doesn’t gloss over the existential threats to indigenous groups. The exhibition also includes interviews of chiefs and shamans from the communities who outline the pressures from both their surrounding environment as a result of climate change, and the Brazilian government that questions the indigenous claim to the land. Salgado’s deep care in bringing to visibility the lives, in every sense of the word, of the indigenous communities of Amazônia is not something we should take for granted. I also went to see Jimmy Nelson’s Humanity at Palazzo Reale, and (I’ll keep this short) I found it to be an aestheticization of a general category of Other, with minimal information and an empty emphasis on the “beauty” of indigenous cultures. An honest capture of the beauty of the variety of traditions of the world comes, in my eyes, with an immersion into the specificity of language, of custom and ritual, of religion and mythology etc. rather than in romanticisation. Salgado values this and gifts it the foreground in his work.
Alessandra Sanguinetti, En el sexto dia, 1996-2004. Courtesy of the artist and Pacmilano.it
Another show I’d like to highlight is a multimedia exhibition at the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC), Argentina: What the Night Tells the Day, presenting the work of twenty cross-generational Argentinian artists from the last 50 years. The exhibit floats through a range of aesthetic styles and themes, with photographs, sculptures, videos and installations dealing with intersectional issues of politics, violence, censorship, gender, sexuality, life and death, time, climate, technology, and all that surrounds the human. A running thread between many of the artists’ work is the violence which has characterised South America’s sociopolitical history in the 20th century.
Before I go on, I want to pause and share a thought. I believe it’s incredibly rare to stand in front of an artwork and really be shaken, or have it stir something in you that lingers for a while after you’ve parted ways. It’s easy to appreciate a ‘masterpiece’ and its place in a long trajectory of creation, its seat in the History of Art – all well and good, but ultimately art is subjective, and its most valuable aspect is not the hand that made it, but the way in which it manages to connect to you.
With that preface, and returning to the aforementioned exhibition, I’d like to put the spotlight on the disquieting installation of Ana Gallardo, Dibujos Textuales of 2018. Entering an enclosed section of the gallery, you are enveloped by a series of large sheets of paper which have been coloured black with charcoal. This is a deceiving blackness, which feigns a simple monochromaticity but in fact withholds a frenzy, a chaos, a protest: traces of Gallardo’s hand are visible in the opaque panels, scratched and scribbled with frantic force.
Ana Gallardo, Canibal, 2018. Photo: Flavia Dal Brollo
“They opened a daughter’s head and removed her brains.”
And at the bottom of each panel, emerging from the dusty darkness like deafening whispers, are a selection of short statements recounting poignant episodes ofviolence. The words are of Guatemalan women and their suffering during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), silent screams of pain, at once solitary requiems and a united choir. I stood at the centre of the small room, moving from one panel to the next and reading the misty letters, turning and turning, surrendered to the whirlpool of voices and the torment of which they spoke. The symbolic charge of the anti-image, locked in the black void, delivers a condensed energy, an experience that evades words. These statements are linked to the specific Guatemalan context, but they are pertinently representative of the epidemic of violence against women which we witness everyday.
I will warn you that I left this exhibition with a somewhat heavy heart, but art should be a force that urges us to face that which is hardest to swallow. Nevertheless, the show is not all so dark and gloomy, and I hope you manage to pass by if I haven’t scared you off!
Before you head to Fabbrica or PAC, let me (Lisa) shed some light on the hidden gems of Milan’s artworld – the numerous art galleries scattered across Milan. Amidst the focus on grand museums’ exhibitions, these smaller, less advertised spaces are often overlooked, especially by us students. Yet, let me tell you, they hide a treasure trove of artistic expression, just waiting to be explored by the curious and artsy minds of our beloved B&A community.
Before we dive in, I would like to reassure you, there are no expectations on you to make a purchase and these galleries are not reserved for the upmarket clientele. While the pristine gallery atmosphere and sparse crowds may make young visitors a little uncomfortable, consider the advantages: free admission and the freedom to wander around an uncrowded exhibition space. And there's another perk, this intimate setting gives the opportunity to engage with gallery staff, to ask questions, to network and to make the most of your artistic exploration.
That being said, let me give you my personal hot tip for the gallery realm — the groundbreaking exhibition by Zoe Leonard at Galleria Raffaella Cortese. For the first time in Italy, the gallery is showing a curated selection of photographic passages from Leonard's monumental work, Al río / To the River.
Those of you who know Zoe Leonard will understand my excitement. For those of you who don't, allow me to give you a brief intro.
Zoe Leonard is a New York-based artist best known for her photography, sculpture and installation work. In the 80s and 90s, Leonard was involved in ACT UP and queer art collectives and dedicated a large part of her work to the tragic loss of friends to AIDS, notably through her renowned piece I Want a President (1992). Her art encapsulates a conceptual and poetic viewpoint, often challenging societal evolution by exploring subjects like urban and natural landscapes, memory, migration and gender. Zoe Leonard has had solo shows at prestigious intuitions worldwide, including MoMA and Tate Modern.
In Al río / To the River, her thematic continuity becomes very clear. The exhibition unfolds across three rooms, each showcasing distinct photographic sequences personally selected by the artist from her extensive body of work. The compilation includes hundreds of photographs taken between 2016 and 2022 of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, focusing specifically on the 2,000km stretch of the river which separates Mexico from the United States.
We are thus confronted with a politically critical context, as I realised from the first sequence, which shows 34 images of a helicopter circling over the border region surrounding the Río Grande. Leonard's ground-level perspective puts us viewers in the position of an immigrant, filled with fear and hopelessness, exposed to modern surveillance methods. The exhibition plunges us into the political reality of immigration, a complex terrain that seems more prevalent than ever in an era marked by unprecedented global migration and enduring power dynamics.
Zoe Leonard, Excerpts from Al Río / To the River, installation view, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan, 2023. Photo: Andrea Rossetti / Héctor Chico.
Courtesy the artist and Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan and Albisola.
Throughout the exhibition I was struck by various juxtapositions: the natural border in contrast to the political border, the tranquil landscape along the river against the harsh border elements marked by displacement and movement.
I had a similar experience to Flavia (with Ana Gallardo's black charcoal installation) in the second exhibition room, featuring close-ups of the water surface, as if we are looking down on it from just a few centimetres away. Its fluid texture, reminiscent of skin, drew me into its depths and left me grappling with the question - what is buried beneath the dark surface? The more I contemplated it, the more intricate thoughts emerged.
Zoe Leonard, Prologue section 6, 2017/2022. Photo Andrea Rossetti / Héctor Chico. Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Raffella Cortese.