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The image of the present. FOSCO MARAINI
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The image of the present. FOSCO MARAINI:

A retrospective

From 8 June to 19 January 2025

MUSEC - Museum of Cultures of Lugano

MUSEC - Museum of Cultures of Lugano

Riva Caccia 5, Lugano

Closed today: open tomorrow at 11:00

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The MUSEC of Lugano celebrates the photography of  Fosco Maraini, twenty years after his passing, with the most extensive retrospective ever dedicated to him, the result of a research started two years ago that involved from the beginning the main institutions that preserve and enhance his work. This makes it possible to definitively assign Maraini the role he deserves in the history of photography and, at the same time, to reflect on multiple levels on the core values of an art form that today, faced with new technological frontiers, questions its own essence. A reflection aimed at emphasizing how every representation of reality, concrete or abstract, only makes sense over time if it is able to convey a spiritual universe and an original vision of the world.

The exhibition set up at Villa Malpensata in Lugano presents  223 photographs, some of which are unpublished, taken between 1928 and 1971 in Europe and Asia. The selection of photographs is the result of an in-depth exploration of Maraini's photographic archives, from the hundreds of illustrated publications that first allowed to define the chapters with which to structure the project, to the thousands of negatives preserved by the Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florence: taking into account the ongoing "discoveries," missing or unusable negatives, and the necessary comparative choices to ensure visual harmony and coherence, the selection took shape. The exhibition path curated by Francesco Paolo Campione, director of MUSEC, showcases the facets of Maraini's photography: a photography of men and cultures; of landscapes that open up to the infinite; of interior architectures reflecting the secret geometries of the inner world; of details revealed among the textures of a reality interpreted with rare intelligence and described with a cultured and refined aesthetic. These are images "captured in the present moment," as Maraini liked to say with one of his surprising neologisms. Images, that is, captured in that unrepeatable moment when the eye is able to perceive the movements of the heart and soul. 

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Riva Caccia 5, Lugano, Switzerland

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Opening hours

opens - closes last entry
monday 11:00 - 18:00
tuesday Closed now
wednesday 11:00 - 18:00
thursday 11:00 - 18:00
friday 11:00 - 18:00
saturday 10:00 - 18:00
sunday 10:00 - 18:00

Closed on December 24, 25, and 31. It is recommended to write to [email protected] or call +41(0)58 866 69 60 for more information

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