More than 250 images by 65 photographers from all over the world deal with the excellence in design of vehicles and infrastructures for moving goods, people and data in the last two centuries. The exhibition is a selection from MAST Foundation’s collection of photographs and video and it is on at the PhotoGallery space of MAST Multifunctional Cultural Centre, that is celebrating its fifth anniversary..
Pendulum, is both the title of the show and a symbol that suggests a dream about the secrets of the universe, the constant motion of the world and its inhabitants through space and time: millions of people and goods move around, as well as data. Physical and dematerialized transport for an endless change of goods, within economic growth in an increasingly globalized market.
Another issue pendulum remind us of is commuter traffic: people travel into cities in the morning and get back to their commuter towns in the evening. Furthermore, its swinging brings us to the never-ending dynamism and contrast between opposite opinions on the issue of the rhythm and patterns of work.
According to the curator of the exhibition Urs Stahel: “Over the decades, ever since the beginning of industrialization the emphasis on speed and productivity has been constantly intensified. The only area in which we are slowing down, and seeking standstill is migration. The losers in the modern world, both local and global, are being radically marginalised”.
Actually, two different kind of flows are presented at MAST pictures like, Markowitsch’s Psychomotor, Doisneau’s pictures of Renault, Edgar Martin’s BMW Paintshop, Mulas’ racing cars and Luciano Rigolini’s car fetish temple. And the installations of Ulrich Gebert and Xavier Ribas dealing with the issue of migration and nomadic life. The visitor can perceive the contrast between the huge increase in speed and means of transport – thought as a totem of our times – and, on the other side, the brutal stop of the flows of migrating people.
Sonja Braas, Annica Karlsson Rixon, David Goldblatt, Jacqueline Hassink, Gabriele Basilico, Mario De Biasi, Vincent Fournier, Rudolf Holtappel, Emil Hoppé, Mimmo Jodice, Dorothea Lange and Helen Levitt are among the authors whose work is on stage. As for Richard Mosse, he links global trade with migration in one single image, a seven-metre-wide work. In his Skaramaghas hundreds of containers are on a dockyard site. Providing a remarkable synthesis of opposites, he records the transport of global commodity on the left, while on the right, the same containers are used as shelter by migrants.
Paola Sammartano
Paola Sammartano is a journalist specialized in arts and photography based in Milan, Italy
Pendulum . Moving Goods, Moving People
Images from the MAST Foundation’s Collection
4 October 2018 – 13 January 2019
MAST.
Via Speranza 42, Bologna, Italy
