da "MURI" 1958

Foundazione Forma in Milan is hosting a retrospective of Nino Migliori. It will close on January 6.

Friday night, trying to find a Christmas gift for my Dad, I stumbled on a book of Migliori's work curated by Marilena Pasquali. (WALLS: TIME GESTURE SIGN)

I was not aware of Migliori. Still living and considered one of the most innovative photographers of the post-war period, his work precedes and exceeds what I am doing.  Pasquali writes:

Migliori's exploration of walls extended for some thirty years from the early 1950s to the late 1970s, and was so rich in interest and potential visual and expressive stimuli that it acted as a conducting theme for all his work, yielding coherent and continual development.  Setting out from initial attention for surface elements and the expressive opportunities of matter itself, the young photographer, breathing the informal air, turned his gaze to the subject during the full ripeness of his photography, opting to capture marks and gestures of expression residing in the wall and which have it speak with the language of protest, or irony, of love and even of dreams.

da "MANIFESTI STRAPPATI" 1973

da "MURI" 1952

Pasquali continues, bold in the original:

Firstly I feel I should underline the close, essential and contradictory relationship established between Nino's constantly receptive (but apprehensive and almost ravenous) gaze and chance.  There is no need here to go into the vexing question of cause and chance.  However, it is appropriate to remember how this photographer, this artist, is able to capture an occasion - even the most unexpected or fortuitous one - and make it his own, imparting order to what comes and goes, no unlike a creator converting chaos into cosmos. This act of transformation and appropriation takes place through the tool of recognition, which is fundamentally the relationship with the visible (a word very dear not only to painters but also to photographers, I believe), this being with the phenomenon, the manifestation of reality, its optical and sensory appearance.  The depth of Migliori's Walls should also be underlined, a depth found in the wealth of layers and presences making walls a boundless source of amazement and narration.  That there is much beyond the surface may be strongly sensed, that something is pushing to emerge, coveting a spot in the limelight. And Nino cannot help but be the first to be fascinated by this opportunity to go beyond appearances, to bring out the unsaid, the unseen, and to give it visibility.

Migliori is much more accepting of graffiti than me.  But perceiving what is "pushing to emerge" is very much similar to my purpose.