Ten years after his death, Milan devotes a major exhibition to photographer Gabriele Basilico, split between two venues: Palazzo Reale and Triennale Milano. Presenting over 500 works, starting from his survey of Milan at Triennale and then looking and arriving at the World at Palazzo Reale.
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The exhibition marks the city’s first substantial tribute to the photographer, who was born and lived in Milan. Showcasing the work of documentation that Basilico conducted over almost 40 years, recounting the architecture, built fabric, monuments, urban development and transformations of Milan and its metropolitan area.

The detailed exploration of Basilico’s relationship with Milan, hosted at Triennale Milano, showcases 13 photographic series, tracing Basilico’s career from early social reportage to his later iconic works and depicting Milan’s evolution in fragments.

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Ten years after his death, Milan is devoting a major exhibition to Gabriele Basilico (1944-2013), divided between two exhibition venues: Palazzo Reale and Triennale Milano. This is the first great tribute that the city in which Basilico was born and lived has paid to the photographer and his cosmopolitan gaze, capable of capturing the essence of all cities. The exhibition will present some 500 works, starting from his survey of Milan at Triennale and then looking and arriving at the World at Palazzo Reale.

The exhibition, Gabriele Basilico: Le mie città, which opens to the public on October 13th 2023, is promoted and produced by the Comune di Milano-Cultura, Palazzo Reale and Triennale Milano, together with Electa, and created with the scientific collaboration of the Archivo Gabriele Basilico. At Palazzo Reale the exhibition is curated by Giovanna Calvenzi and Filippo Maggia and presents a selection of works on Basilico’s major international commissions; at Triennale, where the curatorship is entrusted to Giovanna Calvenzi and Matteo Balduzzi, a broad selection of images of Milan and its outer suburbs is exhibited.
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The exhibition at Triennale Milano

“Over the years Milan has become for me like a seaport, a private place from which to set off for other seas, for other cities, to then return and so leave again”: in these words Gabriele Basilico tells the story of the relationship with his city, which through 13 photographic series and hundreds of works, including 180 photographs on the walls and a broad selection of archival images in display cases, is explored in depth at Triennale Milano, an institution with which the photographer always had close ties.

The exhibition presents, for the first time in a complete and comprehensive way, the work of documentation that Basilico conducted on his city over almost 40 years, recounting the architecture, built fabric, monuments, urban development and transformations of Milan and its metropolitan area. More than any other city, Milan offered Basilico the opportunity to experiment, to undertake research with a broad range of themes, with abundant time available and the ability to move freely.

The 13 series on display, which occupy the space of the Gallery of Triennale in an exhibition conceived and created by Francesco Librizzi Studio, retract Basilico’s career from his beginnings, inevitable immersed in the climate of social reportage, all the way to his latest and most spectacular works, in a trajectory depicting the transformation of Milan by fragments. The layout includes his account of Milan’s outer city in the 1970s, his famous investigation of factories (“Milano Ritratti di Fabbriche”, 1878-1980), his investigation of the architecture of Milanese modernism (1985), his project depicting the city at night conducted for the AEM (1989), the work on the construction of the Porta Nuova district (from 2004 to 2012), the restoration of the roof of the cathedral (2012). Also exhibited are three nuclei of works preserved at the Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea, which contributed to the curatorship of the exhibition at Triennale, and come from the projects “Archivio dello spazio” (Sesto San Giovanni, 1992-1993), “Milano senza confini” (1988) and “Paesaggio prossimo” (2006-2007). Two videos with archival materials and unpublished content will also be on display.

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The exhibition at the Palazzo Reale

About 200 exhibits are displayed in the Palazzo Reale, a rich selection from the Archivio Basilico, among the most important works by the artist in the course of his career, produced for international events at which he was often the only Italian author present. The space of the Lucernario will be occupied by “Sections of the Italian landscape”, a seminal survey on the transformation of the national landscape conducted for the 6th Venice Architecture Biennale 1996, in collaboration with Stefano Boeri (96 prints 30x40 cm). The study develops through six sections of the territory, from north to south of Italy, ideally corresponding to about 50 km each, combining a consolidated urban zone with a densely populated suburban area. A sort of antechamber to the cities of the world that was a fundamental step in Basilico’s work, a documentary exercise that enabled the Milanese photographer to experiment with a language that we then find fulfilled in his photographs of the world’s metropolises.

In the Sala delle Cariatidi, 100 photographs will be exhibited of more than 40 cities taken on the occasion of prestigious international assignments, including Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Moscow, London, Paris, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Boston, Liverpool, Rome, Berlin, Lisbon, Valencia, Jerusalem, Beirut, Amman, Monte Carlo, Hong Kong, and yet others. Cities and metropolises of the world that make up a forest of visions that the viewers discover as if lost inside a film, where each frame is similar and yet different.

Ordering the spaces of places crowded not only with urban architecture, but also with all those signs that specify the nature and pertinence of a place to a given social and cultural context, choosing a frontal or vertical perspective, privileging the panoramic view or dissecting a piece of city as if it were an anatomical study: Basilico’s photographic practice is always the sum of an experience, of a clustering of information that the photographer has collected and transformed into images.

The exhibition, conceived and designed by Filippo Maggia and Umberto Zanetti, with the technical sponsorship of UniFor for the exhibition design and Viabizzuno for the lighting, is designed as an urban layout, a labyrinth of streets and squares where the viewer will meet Basilico’s photographs displayed on panels like the walls of city streets.

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The exhibition catalogue and podcast

The exhibition is accompanied by a double catalogue issued as a set, published by Electa and designed by the Tomo Tomo studio. It presents an affective narrative made up of images, texts encounters and memories rendered by a rich anthology (with texts by Marc Augé, Gabriele Basilico, Marco Belpoliti, Carlo Bertelli, Stefano Boeri, Michele De Lucchi, Luca Doninelli, Vittorio Gregotti, Fulvio Irace, Massimo Minini, Franco Ottolenghi, Sandra Phillips, Aldo Rossi, Gianni Siviero, Roberta Valtorta). A podcast produced by Triennale Milano and written and presented by Gianni Biodillo will also be available to explore the figure and work of Gabriele Basilico.

Gabriele Basilico (Milan, 1944-2013). After graduating in architecture (1973), he devoted himself to photography. The form and identity of cities and the changes taking place in the urban landscape were his privileged fields of research. “Milano. Ritratti di fabbriche”

(1978-80) was his first work devoted to the industrial outer city. In 1984 he took part in the Mission Photographique de la DATAR, commissioned by the French government, and documented the coasts of northern France. In 1991 he worked in Beirut, returning in 2003, 2008 and 2011. He produced many works documenting cities in Italy and abroad, and a large number of exhibitions and books. Considered an undisputed master of contemporary photography,he exhibited in many countries and received numerous awards and accolades. He also interwove his tireless interest in the transformations of the urban landscape with seminars, lectures, conferences, and written reflections. www.archiviogabrielebasilico.it

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20121 Milano

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