Gabriele Basilico's 1987 Paris Exhibition Captures Milan's Postmodern Urban Landscape

Gabriele Basilico's exhibition at Espace Viviane Esders in Paris, France, from October 28 to November 28, 1987, presented photographs of Milan that interrogate postmodern urban representation and architectural ugliness. Basilico approached Milan as a living organism capable of healing and regeneration, metabolizing historical layers from Roman ruins to Novecento frescoes. His work eschewed aesthetic redemption, instead revealing the city's cold orthogonal buildings, window grids, and arid electrical pylons without picturesque skies or depth. This radicalized methodology, developed through missions on French landscapes and seashores, echoed the clinical conceptualism of the Düsseldorf School. In series focused on postwar reconstruction, Milan appeared oppressive, walled, silent, and anxiety-inducing, while its suburbs exhibited architectural disharmony and disgrace more starkly. Unlike Lewis Baltz's rigorous analysis of urban postmodernity, Basilico's perspective allowed for paradoxical affects and the emergence of an urban landscape, even in Milan's fractured, wounded, yet symbolically repaired state. The city, described as an Interrupted City, continues to make history and open subjective narratives, diverging from the implacable contemporary failures seen in works by Beat Streuli or Jeff Wall. Dominique Baqué authored the commentary on this exhibition.