Tall City

I have kept for too long this image of the latest skyline of Milan stowed away in a folder with all my other pictures "ready" for publishing. Still, for I don't know which reason, I always waited for a right time. It must have my a sense of retention to show the clumsy attempt of some Italian cities to mimic other bigger towns around the World, having much less history, architecture and Art to show off. At last, today, I came across an award-winning picture of Milan, featuring the same modern background, standing upright behind the arch of Garibaldi, in Piazza XXV Aprile.

Alfa Romeo - I

Before leaving Milan I couldn't miss to visit one of the seven wonders of this town: the Alfa Romeo Museum, in Arese, not far from where I lived so far. The original production plant of Portello has long been dismantled. Same destiny fell on several others historical brands that made the recent history of this town.

Not so much surprisingly, the first section of the exhibition is devoted to the early stage of the company and to its aviation motors design.

Cheers!

So, yesterday evening I met in Milan with my (former) colleagues for the last time before leaving this country for a while, and had a good deal of beer and laughs with them. It takes a while to get used to it. I thought it would had been easier to get away. Still, it seems that all the time spent together can't be thrown away in the attic all at a sudden.

Far from the madding crowd

My last day in office, my last day in Milan, my last run to catch the earliest train and make the "scrum" in the underground, my last team stand-up meeting, my last speech and recommendations to my colleagues, my last lesson at the whiteboard, my last watering to my plants, my last packing and my last goodbyes ...

(Made and sent from my mobile.)

A Step into the City

There are two kind of weather that make you really appreciate the skyline of Milan. One is the "typical" foggy day, but it's not the best for the City. The other one is the January wind swept sunny afternoon.

Not in this way

The photograph I published few days ago was made at Vivian Maier's  exhibition, on stage till the end of January at Fondazione Forma, not far from the central Piazza Duomo, in Milan. I hurried to send out that picture of my son, laying on an armchair and clearly bored at the end of the exhibition path, together with an equally distracted man as an anticipation of what I'm about to write below. Facts are that I'm busy enough in this first quarter of the year that I nearly forgot about my blog and comment my latest photographic experience. 

After reading about Vivian Maier's photographs being shown in Milan, I gladly accepted to modify my ordinary Sunday program and get on a train to reach the overcrowded city center. I was so eager and excited to see her pictures that, talking with my family at home, I convinced them to come with me and see it, notwithstanding the icy winds sweeping the town these days.

I regret to note here that, after visiting several exhibitions all around the world, this one turned out to be disappointing as never before. If I only could, I would claim my money back. The first warning sign was a rude and presumptuous clerk at the entrance that, pretending to regulate the flow of people queuing at the door, treated us all very badly, with no real reason beside exerting an exaggerated and distorted interpretation of his tasks. A clear example of what is also said: "The power of the powerless". My wife even undertook a useless discussion with that "man in black" and for a while we were about to turn our step back but the will to visit the exhibition was greater than the "disturbance" caused by him.

Unfortunately, the worst still had to come: a hundred of prints put up on the walls of two small rooms with no apparent logic; small spotlights placed in some cases at eye level and causing annoying reflections everywhere; more than one hundred people crammed inside at the same time, surpassing each other in the attempt to gain space and a position good enough to watch the picture before the someone behind them pushed in; a small and unreachable (for the number of heads tossing before you) monitor, where some of Mrs Maier's Super8 takes were supposed to be on display; no explanations, timelines, background notes and just two seats to let the visitors take a break.

We came out of the exhibition completely upset, persuaded to have wasted our money.

I don't want to add more.

And the boat goes on ...

Milano, Naviglio Grande, one week ago. In a typical misty afternoon of this unusually dry winter half town seems to be converging here. The other half is crammed around Piazza Duomo and La Scala, where the lyrical season opening is in progress.

I can hardly walk inside this endless worm of people moving aimlessly along the channel banks. I think it's simply because they don't have anything else to do and anywhere else to go. What everyone cares is just to be out of home and walk with someone to talk to. So do I.

Looks like that people have less to spend this year. Crowded streets but empty shops. I'm just another one among them but I have other concerns: little time and no idea.

Then a boat takes its load of people and goes on and on, till it disappears in he mist.

The Gosts' Corner

There's a corner in the old coaches of Milan underground from where, depending on the light conditions and railway bent you can see the people sitting in front of you reflected on the back windows facing the next coach and appear as if they were sitting in there. It's the corner where people appear and fade away in a matter of seconds. I've been noticing this curious conditions since I arrived here in year 2000. Yesterday the train stopped for a while between two stations, where the rail inclination and curvature were good enough to see a steady picture.

I've been taught that optics laws respect a principle of reciprocity. That's why I thought that if one of these two "ghosts" rose their head and looked through the windows they would have seen another ghost pointing at them his mobile and take a picture. 

(Made and sent from my mobile.)

The Unsolved Spell

Sometimes it feels like standing with shoulders laid on the wall and listening to more bells that with slightly different voices tell you completely different stories. And this chorus mesmerizes you.

A Saturday Afternoon

Last Days of Sales

 Everyone has to get back home with something in his own paper shopping bag.

A stop to the Modern Art Gallery (Milan)

  

For those coming to Milan in the following months (The Expo 2015 is just behind the corner), be aware that on the first Sunday of each month many National museums, including the Modern Art Gallery) will be offer free admittance. Good to know.

Pompeo Marchesi

Venere, 1855

Is there anybody out there?

900

Silent windows on the town.

The modern town

Is growing up and getting populated.

Milan Fog

I've unearthed these pictures, that I took with my old mobile phone some years ago, while looking of something else I can't remember anymore. The weather is changing as far as we go on with the Autumn season. In few days we shall have heavy fog and everything will look like different. So our mood will be.

Mine is already foggy and gloom, but there are different reasons behind.

Italians

Galleria

A (supposedly) lost sample of Franka. taken last summer during a walk in Milan Galleria. Not the best of the captures made during its long life. You have to make recourse to your best imagination, I think.

Francesca Woodman

A new exhibition in town

Francesca Wodman (C), Yet another leaden sky, Rome, 1977-1978

Walking through the desert streets of the self defined "industrial & financial heart" of Italy, these days, is pure pleasure. The late days' rainfalls have cleared the sky as I never was able to see in the last ten years of my life. The foggy and grey town buildings have turned into a kaleydoscope of colors: in some extent it feels like being in Scandinavia!

As the town is empty is much more difficult not to notice the large pictures of a young girl hanging from the tip of a door that cover every corner of the streets. A long waited exhibition of Francesca Woodman is being held at Palazzo della Ragione, facing il Duomo, the downtown Cathedral.

Francesca Wodman (C), Untitled, Rome, 1977-1978

So, back in town after a long and suffered vacation, once out of my office, dribbling through groups of japanese tourists heaping to listen at their guides' speech, I reached the old building and treated myself with some remarkable and inspiring works to see.

Francesca Wodman (C), Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1978

Further details: http://www.mostrawoodman.it/