Form and Movement: photographic exhibition dedicated to Carla Cerati at the Leica Store Milan

As we have written in the past, i Leica Store Italians are not only places where users can buy or learn about cameras and accessories made by the German brand. The company has in fact chosen to create exhibition spaces where people can immerse themselves in the art of photography in various forms. An example are the exhibitions that will alternate at the Leica Store Rome or the one underway at the Leica Store Florence. From the end of January 2023 to the Leica Store Milan one will come instead Photo exhibition dedicated to Carla Cerati (disappeared in 2016).

The title is Form and Movement and was curated by Elena Ceratti, Fabio Achilli and Denis Curti. A way to show the artistic career of the photographer from Bergamo in its various facets and, literally, the lights and shadows used in her images. The topics dealt with are different, but united by the search for the form and gestures of the people portrayed. Here’s what you need to know.

Leica Store Milano: the Forma e Movimento exhibition dedicated to Carla Celati

Let’s start by saying that the exhibition at Leica Store Milan will open on 25 January 2023 and close on 8 April 2023. They will be shown as follows 30 photographs selected based on different themes and on the photographer’s artistic career, which began in the 1950s. For example there are the bodies of actors from Living Theatre (contemporary experimental theater company) but also female nudes. Carla Cerati had stated regarding the experience with the actors that “for me, and certainly not only for me, the encounter with the Living Theater meant the discovery of a new way of doing theater and relating to the public […]“.

Carla Cerati he also dealt with more complex issues such as within the project Dying class (developed together with Gianni Berengo Gardin) which deals with the living conditions inside what were once psychiatric hospitals in Italy (the publication dates back to 1969). It was the period of concerned photography who used photography as a means of social protest. Cerati herself recounted historical events and periods such as the worker and student revolts or the massacres through images.

The photographer said “commitment however means not ignoring the enthusiasm just as I don’t forget the indignation; it means loving my job and continuing to love it as long as it helps me to transmit and exchange ideas”. The sparkling and worldly Milan is instead inserted in Cocktail world. From the 1950s to after the 1980s, however, there was a change that led the photographer to focus on composition and abstraction.

Denis Curti (one of the editors) said about the photographic exhibition Form and Movement “the nudes, portraits, theater and landscapes appear as “concrete thoughts” and no longer as categories. I believe that Carla Cerati was the photographer who, more than others, was able to restore a precise dimension of “human quantity”. Because she was part of it and because she belonged to it”.