Catalogues

In an era marked by the relentless overproduction of images, bombarding us with a constant stream of visual stimuli often absorbed in mere moments, Pino Musi invites us to pause and grant each image the time it truly merits—reclaiming thus what Gillo Dorfles termed the “lost interval.” As Michael Jakob notes in his introduction to this volume, the buildings captured in Musi’s photographs “seem to confront us directly, demanding, if only for a moment, our undivided attention.” Musi advocates for a mode of photographic vision that transcends the clichés which have rendered countless architectural images predictable and unreflective; he encourages us to attune ourselves to the distinctive modes and qualities that define his work, equipping the viewer with the means to forge novel interpretive pathways. Adding depth to the volume is an enriching dialogue wherein some intellectuals, artists, and architects engage with Musi’s works, intertwining the selected images with their own lived experiences to create a compelling “pas de deux” between text and image.

With a major retrospective, the Museo Cantonale d’Arte in Lugano pays homage to Massimo Cavalli (Locarno, 1930), an outstanding figure among the generation of Ticinese artists who made their names in the second half of the twentieth century. Comprising more than 300 works, the exhibition traces, from the early 1950s to the present, the development of Cavalli’s oeuvre which has always been distinguished by his unswerving attachment to an informal pictorial idiom, albeit developed over the years with impressive originality. This rich collection, together with the exhibition catalogue (the most exhaustive ever devoted to this artist), offers a comprehensive survey of Cavalli’s paintings whilst also covering his equally intense graphic.