An exhibition by Mario Giacomelli for the twenty years of Mufoco, the museum of photography and technological images

Twenty years old, he said Mount them, they bring a shadow of threat, but even more a light of vitality. “Your cheerfulness already commits the future” writes the poet of the twenty-year-old muse exposed to the rocks and the sea. The Mufoco like the Esterina of poetry? A museum that lights up and renews itself. Which accepts the challenge of being a place of work on the central and explosive topic of image creation today.

For those who, like me, live in the art of poetry, seeing the tenacity and vitality of this twenty-year-old reminds us of certain verses by Montale and Penna or of the ancients who saw in youth a shadow of threat and an irrefutable power. A museum that reinvents itself and accepts multiple challenges. Mufoco is the most authoritative museum of contemporary photography in our country.

This is made so by the extraordinary archive, the twenty-year history of initiatives which in the last two have reached important goals, such as the recent major exhibition at Quirinale stables“Italy is a desire” together with the prestigious Alinari Foundationthe collaboration for the great homage exhibition that Milan dedicated to Gabriele Basilico, and the next on-site exhibition on the extreme works of Mario Giacomelli, a precious artistic testament of the Maestro, as well as the various projects in Italy and abroad dedicated to new artistic energies .

Our Museum is very alive due to its attitude, suited to a recent and changing art such as photography, to continuous questioning and perpetual renewal. Now at twenty you take a double step. One is represented in recent days by the reopening of the spaces partly redesigned and equipped thanks to the PNRR funds which will facilitate the use of special visitors, and thanks to the work of invention and expertise carried out by Dotdotdot. the Museum is truly accessible to everyone, and will always be more so. And, another step in progress, we are at the end of a process that will lead to fully fulfilling the vocation of Mufoco. – to be the national photography museum of our country.

The debt of friendship with Giovanni Gastel, who first brought me closer to the museum that I cared about a lot, to which now adds the debt to another friend who is in heaven photographing the Invisible, Giovanni Chiaramonte, have motivated me to resume the path already started by those he preceded me. The small and combative Mufoco is celebrating its twentieth anniversary these days with an extraordinary tribute to the great master of photography, Mario Giacomelli and to his extreme work I would like to tell you about this memory. With this hospitality, from 24 February to 19 May, the Museum of Contemporary Photography is not only paying a fitting tribute to one of the indisputable greats of Italian and European photography, but is following in the footsteps of the “magician” who comes from the land of Leopardi.

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Mario Giacomelli writes with light and darkness, with lights and lights, he does something that is? place and theatre, memory and fading of the self, recovery and invention. In short, he does writing-light, writing-dark, writing-shadow. And he brings everyone closer to the root “ph” of the verb phainomai, and what does it have – beyond? of philological discussions – in a single source the appearance of phenomenon, of ghost, of fantasy and of pho?s, light. The magician Giacomelli has given us with his extreme work, an ancient and future journey.

Mufoco presents “I would like to tell this memory”. The last photographic series created by Giacomelli shortly before his passing, exhibited for the first time in his entirety. The exhibition, which opens on February 24th and will be open until May 19th, is completed with the release and first presentation of the volume “Mario Giacomelli. I would like to tell this memory” (Skinnerboox), created by the publisher Milo Montelli, who is the curator together with Katiuscia Biondi Giacomelli, artistic director of the master’s archive.