The monographic exhibition aims to present the outcome of the study activities carried out on the Archive of Enrico Cattaneo (Milan 1933 – 2019), donated to the Civic Photographic Archive of the Municipality of Milan in 2025.
The exhibition, the first major retrospective dedicated to Cattaneo in Milan, will therefore include a selection of original materials from the donation: about 220 photographs (mainly prints, but also negatives, contact sheets and photographic works, unica made by him, the result of an extraordinary experimental and research activity), and about 50 documents, posters, magazines, printed volumes, notebooks and notes.
It will be divided into sections by thematic focus, with video projections, interviews and films. In addition to the valuable materials from the donation, photographs from other collections will also be present.
Cattaneo documented the art and artists of the second half of the twentieth century, recording exhibitions, studies and major public events in Italy, but he also developed an original visual research into the modes, subjects and materials of photography, creating experimental works.
These two aspects of his activity, presented in the exhibition, come together in the unified profile of an author who became a point of reference for art, but also for a critical consideration of the very possibilities of the photographic language.
Curated by Silvia Paoli and Giorgio Zanchetti
Press Office: Silvana Editoriale SpA, in collaboration with the Press Offices of the Municipality of Milan