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Photographs: ITALIAN ICONS

Wednesday 18 June 2025, 04:00 PM • Milan

17

Virgilio Carnisio

(1938)

Milano, Piazza del Duomo, 1985

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Information

Inkjet print, printed later
cm 60 x 90 | 23.6 x 35.4 in.
Edition 19 of 20
Titled, signed and dated in black ink with AFI stamp on the verso

Work accompanied by Certificate of authenticity released by AFI and signed by the photographer

Literature

Sotto la neve di Milano. Fotografie di Virgilio Carnisio, Edizioni Photo Project, Perugia, 1985, cover
Virgilio Carnisio (Milan 1938) began photographing in the early 1960s and, fearing that a false interpretation of modernity could destroy the classic architecture of his city, he wandered between the centre and the suburbs, documenting in black and white courtyards, railing houses, taverns, neighbourhoods such as Isola and Garibaldi, old shops and artisan workshops with the anthropological and social approach dear to classic reportage. He creates, in particularly accurate exhibitions and books, an articulate survey of Milan to which he combines investigations on Valsesia and the realities of Europe, Asia and America, the destinations of his travels.   

If today the Naviglio is the scene of nightlife, in the 1960s it maintained the memory of an ancient Milan crossed by waterways. Always far from the traps of nostalgia (because the good old days were not so good), Virgilio Carnisio dwells on the simple harmony of the façade of a house reflected on the surface of the canal, but knows how to surprise with the figure of the woman washing clothes leaning against a stone slab, ‘brellin’ in Milanese. The gaze focuses on her, on those ancient gestures that still survive and smell of reality. On 13 January 1985 it was Sunday, at the San Siro stadium the Milan team was playing against Como and the spectators ended up being distracted (not the visitors, who won 2-0) because the snow was whitening the field and would continue to fall for four days, covering the entire city. For a photographer like Carnisio, a thousand possibilities opened to capture spectacular images like this one, which captures from afar the crossing of the pedestrians walking across Piazza del Duomo on the path traced in the snow. The photograph, which alludes to both the new landscape and the industriousness of a city that never stands still, became the cover of the volume Under the Snow of Milan that Carnisio published in the following months. 

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