VILLA CIANI – LUGANO
The exhibition is part of the project “Nippon. Tra mito e realtà” (Nippon. Between Myth and Reality), a unique initiative promoted by the City of Lugano, which involves the entire fabric of the city, starting from its most prestigious exhibition centres, offering an itinerary that investigates the most interesting aspects of Japanese art and photography, from the mid-19th century to the present day. The exhibition displayed at Villa Ciani acts as an ideal starting point from which to begin the Nippon itinerary and aims to take the visitor beyond the stereotypes of Exoticism and Japanism to introduce him to a vision of the profound ideological and cultural interactions that took place in the encounter between Japan and the West. The exhibition, curated by Francesco Paolo Campione, director of MUSEC, and Marco Fagioli, features around 200 photographs (mainly hand-water coloured albumen prints) by the major photographers of the second half of the 19th century, from a private collection put together by a passionate collector, considered to be one of the three largest collections of its kind in the world. Ineffable perfection presents some masterpieces from one of the most important chapters in the history of photography, leading the visitor to immerse himself in the different themes of the culture and art of Japan, precisely at the time when, abandoning an isolation that had lasted for three hundred years, the Land of the Rising Sun was opening up to the West, influencing the taste of modernity with images and expressions of its creativity.
The exhibition, organised in sections, investigates the representation of the landscape and nature “educated” by culture, the taste for exoticism and the profound relationship between photography and ukiyo-e prints, the image of woman, seen in the multiple aspects of sublime beauty, as well as in the trades and activities of the home, the workshop and the fields, and the woman of pleasure. The exhibition will also provide an insight into the work of some masters of the Yokohama School, such as Felice Beato, Raimund von Stillfried-Ratenicz, Kusakabe Kimbei, Ogawa Kazumasa and Tamamura Kozaburo.
The exhibition is completed by the inclusion of some photographic equipment from the 19th century and around sixty works of art and refined objects of material culture from prestigious private collections. These include a magnificent 16th century Samurai armour, some precious religious sculptures, a very fine selection of men’s and women’s clothing and a selection of sixteen extraordinary masks from Nō theatre. In addition to the rich catalogue that accompanies the exhibition, there are several guided tours and workshop activities for schools to explore the themes in the exhibition.
Reiterations:
16 December 2011 – 01 April 2012, Palazzo Franchetti, Venice. The exhibition on this occasion is entitled ‘Photography of Japan. Masterpieces. 1860-1910″.
22 April – 03 June 2012, Museo Pignatelli, Naples. The exhibition on this occasion is entitled “Photography of Japan (1860-1910). Masterpieces
«Esovisioni» is a cycle dedicated to the peculiarities and paths of the vision of cultures through the photographic lens. The working hypothesis is that the photographer, taking the exhibition’s exotic image as a pretext has, consciously or unconsciously, returned his own inner vision, enriching the collective imagination with artful images and stereotypes of different cultural realities.