Set up inside Modulnova‘s Milan showroom on Corso Garibaldi, it is titled PhotoPastel and is an exhibition of works by Turin-based photographer and anthropologist Patrizia Mussa, who was involved in the project by Claudio Composti. The exhibition represents the first stage of MAP – Modulnova Art Project, a cultural project that celebrates creativity and beauty through the meeting of art, architecture and design in a perspective of exchange and sharing.
Modulnova Art Project, Photopastel Reggia Venaria Galleria di Diana © Patrizia Mussa 2020
“Patrizia Mussa is trained as an anthropologist,” explains Claudio Composti, curator of the project. “She travels around Italy and photographs important Italian buildings, from theaters to noble palaces to Baroque churches. She then prints the photographs on cotton paper and intervenes on the canvas with pastel or pencil.”
Modulnova Art Project, Photopastel Reggia di Caserta © Patrizia Mussa 2019
Modulnova Art Project, Photopastel Palazzina di Caccia Stupinigi To ©Patrizia Mussa
Through the hand-painted intervention, the artist emancipates himself from the simple photographic nature of the initial shot and transforms it into a metaphysical place, a place of the mind, where there is no human presence. “It is not important for the image to be realistic,” Composti continues,“because it becomes a drawing, a memory, a dream, representing the beauty of our country, that Made in Italy for which we are recognized all over the world.”
Modulnova Art Project, Photopastel Reggia di Venaria © Sant’Uberto Patrizia Mussa 2022
“I use photography to observe, to reflect, to unveil,” Patrizia Mussa comments, “photography is at bottom a kind of reminder, of notes, of thoughts, of reflections of one’s own time that can be re-read in deferred ways and times. In the chaos of life I find a tormented peace in the solitude of places, of unfrequented landscapes. The images I collect are the witnesses of that suspension, with them I express the desire for a silent longing for proximity.”
Modulnova Art Project, Photopastel,Teatro Italia © Patrizia Mussa
Modulnova Art Project, Photopastel, Teatro Sancarlo Napoli © Patrizia Mussa 2019
The exhibition will remain on display until the end of January in Modulnova’s Milan showroom and then be taken on tour to the company’s most important flagship stores in Italy and abroad.
