ART CITIES:Milan-Luisa Lambri

Luisa Lambri’s discrete photographs occupy a unique space between photographic abstraction and the spatial exploration of architecture. They are pared down to the most reductive elements and inspire a transcendental perception of light and space. Her signature style is marked by an emphasis on lines and grids as well as an extreme subtlety of color. Frequently working in series, she isolates details and different qualities of light to build personal and intimate readings of environments.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: PAC Archive

Luisa Lambri’s first large-scale solo exhibition in Italy “AUTORITRATTO”, is a project designed and developed specifically for the Milanese pavilion of Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC). The relationship between her photographs and the space in which they are exhibited is an integral part of Lambri’s work. Every new space that hosts one of Lambri’s installations presents unique qualities with which the artist interacts, making every one of her project’s site-specific. The title of Lambri’s exhibition pays homage to the eminent art critic Carla Lonzi who, before devoting herself exclusively to feminist politics, published a series of interviews with fourteen artists from the 1960s avant-garde under the title “Autoritratto” (Self-Portrait) (1969). Lonzi’s discussions give the reader a first-person glimpse into the private lives of these artists and the ways in which they articulated how they saw themselves in the context of the art world and the world at large. Lambri similarly constructs personal and intimate readings of her subjects and in doing so encourages a dialogue between the viewer, the artwork and the space in which they interact. Her specific and meticulous investigation of space can be read as a form of self-exploration, or a self-portrait, in a manner similar to that of Lonzi’s book. The exhibition focus on the relationship between Lambri’s works and the architecture of Ignazio Gardella. The photographs on display become a true extension of the exhibition space, making the architecture and the subjective experience of the visitor an integral part of the artist’s work. The large selection of works on view in this exhibition were made between 1999 and 2017 and highlight Lambri’s tendency to work in series. Some of these works are exhibited in Italy for the very first time. In these photographs Lambri enters into intimate dialogues with works by artists such as Donald Judd, Robert Irwin, Lygia Clark and Lucio Fontana, as well as architects Álvaro Siza, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Mies van der Rohe, Luis Barragán, Rudolph Schindler, Paulo Mendes da Rocha and Giuseppe Terragni, among others. The installation of Lambri’s series “Untitled (Sheats-Goldstein House)” (2007) in the parterre of PAC also involves a dialogue with another important Italian architect, Lina Bo Bardi, who designed the then-new São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MASP) in 1957. The ten photographs selected for the parterre are displayed on glass and concrete easels created by Bo Bardi for the Brazilian museum and reproduced here in collaboration with the Instituto Bardi in São Paulo.

Photo: Exhibition view “Luisa Lambri, AUTORITRATTO”, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC)-Milan, 2021, Courtesy the artist and Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC)

Info: Curators: Diego Sileo and Douglas Fogle, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC), via Palestro 14, Milan, Duration: 16/2-30/5/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri 10:00-19:30, Thu 10:00-20:30, www.pacmilano.it