“IN QUESTO LUOGO IL 28 MAGGIO 1974 NON È SUCCESSO NIENTE” (“IN THIS PLACE ON MAY 28, 1974 NOTHING HAPPENED)”. The writing, in marker and in large letters, can be seen from a distance and is repeated twice: first portrayed by what looks like a huge polaroid with a reddish tint and loose edges, and shortly afterwards printed on a sheet of drawing paper, this time in cool tones, onto which the same polaroid image has been transferred. There is no caption, but handwritten notes in the margin of the works reveal what we are looking at (polaroid 50×60 matrix, polaroid 50×60 transfer plate), as well as classifying and signing the works (ready made nov.2023 studio no.45 by Maurizio Galimberti). Let us reread, “IN QUESTO LUOGO IL 28 MAGGIO 1974 NON È SUCCESSO NIENTE “. The peremptory statement is written on a leaflet, superimposed on a poster calling on “Brescian Citizens” to participate in an anti-fascist demonstration “On Tuesday, May 28, 10 a.m. in Piazza Loggia”. One of the worst tragedies of the terror strategy period happened there that day, when a bomb detonated in the middle of a crowd of demonstrators, killing eight and injuring one hundred and two.
Maurizio Galimberti, “StudioN11, Piazza Della Loggia, Brescia”, 2024, courtesy Fondazione Brescia Musei
On the occasion of the 7th Brescia Photo Festival, which this year, not surprisingly, bears the title Testimoni (Witnesses), and the 50th anniversary of the massacre, the Municipality of Brescia and Fondazione Brescia Musei have commissioned Maurizio Galimberti (Como, 1956) to commemorate the tragedy through photography with a solo exhibition at the Santa Giulia Museum. A peculiar choice, not only because of the artist’s atypical use of the medium (his practice consists of making kaleidoscopic collages of dozens of Polaroids from the same subject) but especially because Galimberti is internationally known for his unmistakable portraits of Hollywood stars and iconic locations. He is a fashionable artist, positioned closer to David La Chapelle than to Christian Boltanski, so the decision to commission him to tackle a subject such as a terrorist attack may generate puzzlement. From the first of the two rooms, it is immediately evident that Galimberti has not deviated from his established stylistic signature. A series of polaroid collages refract archival material concerning the event: news photographs, newspaper pages, identity cards, children’s drawings. The artist seems to apply his way of working almost mechanically, as if he made no effort to react to the assigned theme. But precisely in such rigor lies the value of his artistic operation, which allows the exhibition to be as effective as it is respectful.
Maurizio Galimberti, “StudioN17, Piazza Della Loggia, Brescia”, 2024, courtesy Fondazione Brescia Musei
Galimberti does nothing more than confer the status of an artwork – in the way he does best – on what the event has materialized in different forms, highlighting its material and fragile existence while at the same time consigning it to the immortality that only art is capable of attributing. The only deviation from his formula are the large Polaroids and their transfers on paper, which occupy the second part of the exhibition and reaffirm it thematically by manifesting even more explicitly the transient and material nature of historical memory and the impossibility of writing a decisive narrative about it. In these formats, aesthetic intervention becomes even more subtle, almost nil. New source materials appear, such as photostripes, posters and graffiti, to which are added some of the images from the first room, which are repeated without a meaningful sequence, as in a decomposing symphony. Even the polaroid collages are duplicated in turn, in a loop of reproductions and alterations that levels any testimony in a democratic but ultimately destructive way, mimicking the process that time performs on the collective memory of the witnesses of the event and their descendants.
Maurizio Galimberti, “StudioN07, Piazza Della Loggia, Brescia”, 2024, courtesy Fondazione Brescia Musei
Galimberti chooses to take a step back as far as subjective artistic interpretation is concerned, wisely limiting himself to “musealizing those photographs, without in the least altering their substance”, as Renato Corsini, the exhibition’s curating photographer and author himself of some of the images of the massacre, puts it. Of course, there is creativity and subjectivity in the choice of reproduced materials and their transformation, but the artist’s voice never covers that of the traces themselves: faces, crowds, slogans float in the void — thanks also to the appropriate choice of omitting explanatory captions — fragmenting and melting before our eyes. In this context, even the slightest sign, such as a marker on a piece of paper applied to a poster, takes on an aura of uncertainty and timelessness.
Maurizio Galimberti, “StudioN03, Piazza Della Loggia, Brescia”, 2024, courtesy Fondazione Brescia Musei
It is unusual to witness such an austere artistic operation-essentially akin to work done by international art greats on the major dramas of human history-relating to an event so close to one’s personal experience. Although I am from Brescia, my age and approach to art allow me to experience the exhibition in a detached way, but it is clear that not everyone has this privilege. My 17-year-old father was in the city center that day and remembers the bang well. My mother, with whom I first visited the exhibition, had no direct experience of it, but her upset during the visit was evident. Her father was a protester, seeming to him “six or seven meters” from the device when it detonated. Most likely it is his one of the faces in the crowd photographed immediately after the blast and multiplied by the artist.
Maurizio Galimberti, “StudioN04, Piazza Della Loggia, Brescia”, 2024, courtesy Fondazione Brescia Musei
Perhaps it is this thought that prompted her to proceed quickly through the halls, unable to dwell on any of the works. She then explained to me that she simply could not see the works but only the tragedy; she did not judge the operation negatively, in fact she completely supported the desire to remember through any medium, but neither could she appreciate it as an art exhibition. This is an inevitable implication of any artistic operation concerning such themes, although witnessing it firsthand cannot help but generate a new awareness. However, there remains no doubt that art is perhaps the most appropriate way to remember: if responsible and respectful, it is able to situate itself in the gray zone between the objectivity of the chronicle and the subjectivity of the narrative. And Galimberti has shown awareness of his privileged role as photographer-artist, putting himself at the service of memory and becoming a witness of evidence.
Luca Avigo
Info:
Maurizio Galimberti. Brescia, Piazza Loggia 1974
curated by Renato Corsini
08/03/2024 – 25/08/2024
Museo di Santa Giulia
Via dei Musei, 81 b, 25121 Brescia BS
www.bresciamusei.com
is a contemporary art magazine since 1980
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