Between art and nature / Photographs from the collection of Carla Sozzani

The exhibition Between Art and Nature. Photographs from the collection of Carla Sozzani, curated by Maddalena Scarzella, presents a selection of 80 photographs from the permanent collection of the Fondazione Sozzani in Milan, offering a new look at the collection not as a whole, but focusing attention on those works in which Nature is an inexhaustible source of inspiration, study, reference, veneration, estrangement, comfort.

Concerned to the rediscovery of historical, unknown or forgotten places in the city and in the surrounding area since the beginning, this year Lake Como Design Festival decides to host a major photography exhibition at the former Orsoline San Carlo Convent, an interesting seventeenth-century building that opens its doors to the general public for the first time, in collaboration with Arte Applicata and Dedalo Orsoline San Carlo.

Scarzella has identified twenty photographers within the collection whose works offer a broad overview of the way in which photography has portrayed Nature and the way in which Nature has inspired the most diverse photographic works. Starting from the iconic silhouettes of plants by Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932), the exhibition moves through well-known and lesser-known names and works such as the x-ray photographs of flowers taken by Dr. Darin L. Tasker (1872-1964), juxtaposed with milestones of the genre such as the impeccable still-life by Kenro Izu (1949) and Tom Baril (1952). From the idyllic worlds of Annelies Štrba (1947) we move on to the meticulous ethnographic documentation of Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1952) up to the landscapes suspended in time of Sarah Moon (1941) to then arrive at Masahisa Fukase’s (1934-2012) photographs of flocks of crows as an allegory of pain and studies on clouds as a metaphor for life by Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946).

“Carla Sozzani's collection is inextricably linked to her more than 40-year career as a journalist and gallery owner, anticipator of tastes and eclectic collector”, declares Maddalena Scarzella. "This selection of works in relation to Nature opens up a new way of looking at its works for the Sozzani Foundation, while remaining faithful to that vision of the world, of the feminine and of beauty that has always guided our activities and our acquisitions".

BETWEEN ART AND NATURE
curated by Maddalena Scarzella
Ex Convento Orsoline San Carlo
Como, via Volta 16
16 September - 15 October 2023
10 am - 1 pm / 2 pm - 6.30 pm
closed on Thursday