Photo20simo

Despite the first snowstorm of this season, five members of TEC-CH braved the weather last Friday to visit the Museo d'Arte of the City of Lugano, in order to see the Photo20simo (pronounced: fo-to-ven-TAY-si-mo) : maestri della fotografia del XX secolo exhibition. With over 300 photographs from the private collection of Torino's Marco Antonetto, the exhibition is a comprehensive look at the various concepts and genres that inspired masterpieces from artists such as Lucien Clergue, László Moholy-Nagy, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, and many more.

In eight different themes: Abstraction, Portraiture, Art and Artists, Body, Landscape, Reportage, Still Life, and Fashion, the exhibition introduced a variety of ideas with archetypal examples that are signficant over the history of 20th-century. From Moholy-Nagy's photograms in the 1920s to the controversial Mapplethorpe nudes in the 1980s, further to latest photographic works by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, the exhibition leads its visitors to a world of immortalised memories, fantastic techniques and innovation.

One warning, however: with a traditional white-cube gallery approach, the exhibition assumes previous knowledge in art history or history of photography. If possible, a pre-arranged guided tour is highly recommended. Our wonderful and knowledgeable docent, Tiziana, introduced us to unspoken stories and deep meanings of these masterworks that are otherwise unknown to visitors.