Carlo Mollino: In Viaggio

The exhibition

The Carlo Mollino exhibition, In viaggio, for the first time brings together a series of photographs taken by the renowned Turinese architect and designer on his travels around the world.

The United States, Japan, India, Greece, Holland and Romania are but a few of the places portrayed by Mollino over a series of journeys undertaken for pleasure, work, or as part of those excursions organised periodically by the Society of Engineers and Architects of Turin. Whatever the reason for the journeys, the images bear the traces of his great passions: from buildings by some of the leading protagonists of architecture around the world to automobiles, from objects to the women invariably found throughout his photographic production. His images are often cut-and-thrust snapshots, taken using handy, small-format equipment, like notes to be elaborated at a later date, yet displaying Mollino’s fine taste for both free and carefully balanced – yet always seductive – compositions.

Black & white images alternate with colour shots in a tale of distant cultures, celebrating the pleasure of exploration and discovery, accompanying the visitor along a narrative which is both intimate and involving. Details are what attract the photographer’s eye more than anything, giving rise to a sort of personal diary which – starting from the most private details – constitutes an atlas full of objects to examine and evocations by which to be transported.

Interspersed with a great number of self-portraits, a recurrent hallmark of Mollino the photographer, the exhibition itinerary unfolds through 100 largely unseen images, blending irony and curiosity, scientific interest and outright surprise.