GUIDO HARARI. MEETINGS 50 years of photographs and stories on display at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan

A complete anthological exhibition dedicated to Guido Harari has been inaugurated at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan with more than 300 photographs, as well as original films, projections and musical incursions, an audio guide for everyone and meetings with the author.

The exhibition opens with a special installation dedicated to Milan, to the great figures of art, culture and Milanese society that Harari met during his 50-year career. The “Magic Cave” will also be set up in the exhibition, a special photographic set where Guido Harari will take portraits (online reservation required).

In addition to the original print, which he himself will sign and deliver to whoever will be portrayed, a second print will be exhibited – in real time – in the section that closes the exhibition, Eyes of Milan, a sort of “exhibition within the exhibition” which will gradually become populated of the looks of the city. And to represent them all, Harari will create “suspended portraits” of the “less fortunate” Milanese in the “Enzo Jannacci” welcome home and in other assistance facilities.

These “suspended portraits” will also be added to the large mosaic of the Eyes of Milan.
The exhibition retraces all the phases of Guido Harari’s eclectic career: from his debut in the musical field as a photographer and journalist, to the numerous album covers for artists such as Fabrizio De André, Bob Dylan, Vasco Rossi, Kate Bush, Paolo Conte, Lou Reed, Frank Zappa, until the affirmation of a work that over time has bounced from one genre to another – publishing, advertising, fashion, reportage – always favoring the portrait as an intimate story of encounters with the major personalities of his time.

The exhibition itinerary starts from the Seventies, when Harari, still a teenager, began to combine his two great passions: music and photography. Unpublished images and sequences, together with period backstage footage, video interviews, the Sky Arte documentary dedicated to him and the audio guide with the narration of Harari himself lead the visitor into the heart of his creative process.

In addition to having photographed the world of music for years, Harari has also created an extraordinary series of portraits of the “great Italians”, protagonists of culture and society, from Ennio Morricone to Dario Fo, from Roberto Benigni to Liliana Segre . Portraits always intended as meetings which, in several cases, turned into long acquaintances and collaborations.

The exhibition also offers a section dedicated to the parallel passion for the curation of books understood as a form of “photography without a camera”, as well as opportunities for old and new encounters (thus the illustrated biographies dedicated to Fabrizio De André, Fernanda Pivano, Mia Martini, Giorgio Gaber and Pier Paolo Pasolini), and another dedicated to unpublished “research” images that Harari has been creating for some years as his personal form of meditation in progress. On the occasion of the exhibition, Rizzoli Lizard published a large volume of 432 pages, “Remain In Light”, with over 500 illustrations, which constitutes the catalogue.

THE SECTIONS OF THE EXHIBITION

“IF YOU KNOW HOW STRANGE IT IS…” TRIBUTE TO MILAN
With his first anthological exhibition Harari returns to Milan, the city where he grew up and established himself.
He does so after spending the last twenty years in the intimate dimension of the Langhe, in Piedmont.
Hence the desire to open the exhibition with a tribute to some of the major personalities who have made this city great, including Dario Fo, Giorgio Gaber, Enzo Jannacci, Alda Merini, Carla Fracci, Achille Castiglioni, Giorgio Armani, Miuccia Prada, Milva , Ornella Vanoni, Elio Fiorucci.

LIGHT MY FIRE. THE BIG BANG OF A PASSION
The exhibition starts from the idealized reconstruction of Harari’s room as a boy, with all the iconography that inspired him: posters, photos, vintage magazines and books, diary pages, record covers, autographs and memorabilia.

ALL AREAS ACCESS
A privileged and very close look at the backstage of tours and recording studios, at
search for intimacy with artists, which will soon explode in the more exclusive dimension of the portrait:
from Fabrizio De André and PFM to Paolo Conte, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Frank Zappa, Keith Jarrett, Mark Knopfler, Claudio Baglioni, Gianna Nannini and others.

THE MUSIC THAT GOES AROUND ME
At the center of an immersive room the propulsive dimension of the concerts comes to life, with artists such as Bowie, Queen, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, Miles Davis, Led Zeppelin, Prince, Neil Young, Nirvana, Police, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner.
On the walls are portraits of favorite musicians, including Tom Waits, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, Jeff Buckley, George Harrison, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Patti Smith, Peter Gabriel, Frank Zappa, Kate Bush, the Clash, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Iggy Pop, Van Morrison. The excellences of Italian songwriting, the great ladies of Italian music, the spring of indie groups, complete the journey through music: from Paolo Conte to Franco Battiato, Fabrizio De André, Vasco Rossi, Lucio Dalla, Ivano Fossati, Giorgio Gaber, Enzo Jannacci, Pino Daniele, Mia Martini, Alice, Milva, Elisa, Gianna Nannini, Caterina Caselli, Antonella Ruggiero,
Francesco Guccini, Vinicio Capossela, Francesco De Gregori, Litfiba, CSI

THE PORTRAIT AS AN ENCOUNTER
Encounters of the heart: long acquaintances and isolated collisions pushed Harari to broaden the horizons of his passion beyond the sphere of music. Collected here are, among others, JoséSaramago, Wim Wenders, Shirin Neshat, Richard Gere, Pina Bausch, Greta Thunberg, Luis Sepulveda, Amos Oz, Zygmunt Bauman, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Hanna Schygulla, Lindsay Kemp, Ute Lemper, Daniel Ezralow, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Noa, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Frank O. Gehry, Robert Altman, Jean-Luc Godard, Mother Teresa and others.

ITALIANS
The protagonists of art, culture and society, Italian excellences between the twentieth century and the twentieth century, photographed as if they were all rock stars, from Gianni Agnelli to Rita Levi Montalcini, Ennio Morricone, Nanni Moretti, Roberto Benigni, Umberto Eco, Michelangelo Antonioni, Dario Fo and Franca Rame, Bernardo Bertolucci, Carmelo Bene, Roberto Baggio, Ettore Sottsass, Renzo Piano, Carla Fracci, Vittorio Gassman, Lina Wertmuller, Monica Vitti, Gino Strada, Luciano Pavarotti, Sophia Loren, Giorgio Armani, Carla Fracci, Margherita Hack, Alda Merini, Marcello Mastroianni, Enzo Biagi, Miuccia Prada, Liliana Segre, Toni Servillo and many others.

THE FEELING OF THE LOOK. THE PHOTOGRAPHERS
The portraits of some great photographers who inspired Harari, captured in close-ups that emerge from the darkness, as if to exorcise him: among others, Duane Michals, Richard Avedon, Sebastiao Salgado, Helmut Newton, Paolo Pellegrin, Steve McCurry, Letizia Battaglia, Ferdinando Scianna, Nino Migliori, Gianni Berengo Gardin, Mario Giacomelli.

PHOTOGRAPHING WITHOUT A CAMERA
A parallel passion: the curation of books, the editing of texts, documents and images, the recovery and restoration of forgotten archives, the graphic project as an essential element of the story. Books as opportunities for old and new encounters. Thus the illustrated biographies of Fabrizio De André, Fernanda Pivano, Mia Martini, Giorgio Gaber and Pier Paolo Pasolini, presented with double pages taken from the books and video projection with unpublished footage of the making.

Antidotes to the rituals of commercial photography and celebrity portraits, the images in this section are slivers of reportage, portraits, research and unpublished experiments, in search of new languages ​​that point beyond photography.

EYES OF MILAN
During the opening period of the exhibition, in the last room of the itinerary, the portraits that Guido Harari will have created in the Magic Cave will be displayed in real time, giving life to a sort of “exhibition within the exhibition” which, once completed, will ideally represent the looks of the city. Anyone who wishes, by booking in advance on the website www.cavernamagicaharari.com, will be able to have their portrait taken by Harari in his photographic set, set up in the space adjacent to the ticket office and then see himself exhibited in the Eyes of Milan section.

The “MAGIC CAVE” and the “SUSPENDED PORTRAIT”
Inside the exhibition, a special photographic set will be set up, called “Magic Cave”, in which – on set days – visitors who wish (by booking online on the cavernamagicaharari.com website) will be able to have their portrait taken by Harari. On the same day they will receive a Fine Art print of their portrait in 33x48cm format, signed by Harari, while a second copy of the same portrait will be exhibited in real time, and in rotation, in the room dedicated to the Eyes of Milan.
Furthermore, in conjunction with the Milanese exhibition, Guido Harari launches a new initiative: the “Suspended Portrait” which takes its name from that habit now known throughout the world, born from the Neapolitan tradition, in which the patron of a bar can leave the gift of a coffee for the benefit of a stranger. Something similar will come to life in the “Magic Cave”: the portraits taken here upon reservation will make possible, or rather will donate, a series of suspended portraits to the less fortunate Milanese of some assistance structures, such as the “Enzo Jannacci” reception centre, the Cancer Institute and other structures of social commitment. These “suspended portraits” will also be added to the large mosaic of the Eyes of Milan.
Guido Harari will be in the “Magic Cave” as early as November 1st. Booking portraits with the connected “suspended portrait” is available on the cavernamagicaharari.com website.

THE ARTIST

Inspired by the great rock and jazz photographers of the fifties and sixties, Guido Harari is
established himself in the early seventies as a photographer and music journalist. Over time he explored and
also explored reportage, institutional portraits, advertising and fashion, collaborating with
major Italian and international newspapers.
Numerous album covers signed for international artists such as Kate Bush, David Crosby, Bob Dylan, BB King, Ute Lemper, Paul McCartney, Michael Nyman, Lou Reed, Simple Minds and Frank Zappa, as well as works for Dire Straits, Duran Duran, Peter Gabriel, Pat Metheny, Santana and more.
In Italy he has collaborated above all with Claudio Baglioni, Andrea Bocelli, Angelo Branduardi, Vinicio Capossela, Paolo Conte, Pino Daniele, Fabrizio De André, Eugenio Finardi, Ligabue, Mia Martini, Gianna Nannini, PFM, Vasco Rossi, Zucchero and the Filarmonica della Scala directed by Riccardo Muti.
He has held several solo exhibitions, including Wall Of Sound presented at the Rockheim Museum, in Norway, at the National Gallery of Umbria, in Perugia, and at the Rossini National Museum, in Pesaro. Harari was also among the curators of the large multimedia exhibition on Fabrizio De André, produced by Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, of the Art Kane exhibition. Visionary for the Galleria civica of Modena and for Made in Cloister, in Naples, and of the Pino Daniele Alive exhibition, again for Made in Colister, in Naples.
Among his illustrated books are Fabrizio De André. E poi, il futuro (2001), The Beat Goes On (with Fernanda Pivano, 2004), Vasco! (2006), Fabrizio De André. A drop of splendor (2007), Fabrizio De André & PFM. Evaporated in a rock cloud (with Franz Di Cioccio, 2008), Mia Martini. The last chance to live (with Menico Caroli, 2009), Gaber. The illogical utopia (2010), Pier Paolo Pasolini. Bestemmia (2015), The Kate Inside (2016), Fabrizio De André. Sguardi strays (2018), Remain In Light. 50 years of photographs and meetings (2022), Jannacci give up! Contraband photomemories (2023).
In 2011 he opened a photography gallery (Wall Of Sound Gallery) and a publishing house of catalogs and limited edition volumes (Wall Of Sound Editions) in Alba, where he has lived for several years, entirely dedicated to the imagery of music.

INFO

GUIDO HARARI. MEETINGS
50 years of photographs and stories
Until April 1, 2024

STEAM FACTORY, EX MESSINA SPACE
Milan

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