Maurizio Galimberti on display at the Diocesan Museum in Milan: A look at our history
Even before printing the image, he already has in mind what Maurizio Galimberti wants to achieve. After telling us about the world with the compositions a mosaic made with his Polaroid, now offers us a singular reinterpretation of the most characteristic events of the last century and which crosses over to the present day.
The exhibition “A look at our history” hosts, in the Diocesan Museum of Carlo Maria Martini in Milan, a selection of thirty large-format photographs by the 66-year-old artist. Which, starting from an image often reproducing a photo taken by someone else, whose rights are recognized, creates an appeal.
A journey therefore to re-read the past and to renew its memory.
Here is the drawn face of Martin Luther King; the encounter-clash between Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, in 1991; the astonished gaze of a Cambodian child, 1978, during the genocide in his country and the dismay of the child separated from his parents at the Mexico-United States border in 2018. Here is Nelson Mandela as he jokingly punches his idol in life and in sport Muhammad Ali; an already weakened Pope John Paul II being moved by a white dove flying beside him; the portrait of Falcone and Borsellino, by Anna Magnani in a dramatic sequence of Rome open city; but also that of Mother Teresa of Calcutta as she tenderly embraces a child. It’s still…
Maurizio Galimberti John Paul II, 2000
Works characterized by constant movement; a dynamism for which photographers are indebted to that great pioneer he was Eadweard Muybridge. The review, very interesting, is curated by Denis Curtiphotographic critic, who Affaritaliani.it interviewed.
In this project, what is the process of creating a mosaic from a small photo?
“From a technical point of view, a digital file is obtained, then a reproduction: through a card it is then placed in the Fuji instax camera which works both as a digital camera, able to read the file that Maurizio produced, and as a printer; then with very small contraptions he chooses the portions he wants to enlarge.
It prints only the ones it wants to use in its verticalization and thus the mosaic is composed, generated from a single photo. Behind each of these frames is the original image, which Maurizio calls matrix”.
Maurizio Galimberti, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Eltsin, 1991, photo by Boris Yurchenko
Why do you make these works?
“He wants to underline again some historical events, some paradoxically forgotten, a desire to update history, an opportunity to give the photo a second life. It is a never-ending job, in the sense that the more you investigate the story the more you realize that there are events that have remained in the background. The more you go on, the more you discover in a Socratic logic that the more you know, the less you know ”.
It is an open project that includes other episodes therefore
“Yes, there will be a third and perhaps a fourth chapter …”.
The exhibition ends with the dramatic image of the column of cars fleeing from Kiev: taken from a newspaper on February 25, the blow-up, placed on an easel, reproduces the photo of the page initially folded in two, as if broken by a blue strip.
“From one corner of the city, everything can change”, says Galimberti.
A look at our history
Diocesan Museum Carlo Maria Martini (p.zza Sant’Eustorgio 3) – Milan
1st March – 1st May 2022
Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 10 am-6pm; closed on monday
Tickets: full € 8.00 – reduced and groups, € 6.00
Maurizio Galimberti Kiev February 25, 2022 from the newspaper Domani