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april 29, 2019 - Comune di Milano

'Leonardo. La macchina dell’immaginazione' at Palazzo Reale in Milan


To commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of #leonardo da Vinci, the Comune of Milano- Cultura, Palazzo Reale and the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani are promoting a multimedia exhibition curated by Studio Azzurro. By integrating diverse languages and skills, including video, graphic animation and interactive systems, Studio Azzurro created an intriguing and informative experience, with the technical support of art historian Edoardo Villata.

The exhibition itinerary proceeds through a series of seven video installations, five of which are interactive. The installations envelop the viewer in a world of images and sounds based on Leonardo’s multifaceted legacy, through which the genius “speaks” of his time and of our own.

Each of the spectacular machines, freely inspired by Leonardo’s drawings, corresponds to one of the exhibition sections: Observations on Nature, The City, The Landscape, Peace Machines, War Machines, Anatomy Table and Painting.

Studio Azzurro has conceived a space that immerses visitors in the world of Leonardo’s imagination – a world of machines, some as clear as his horizons, others as opaque as his note paper. The experience is designed to lead visitors from observation to participation as they proceed among forms with the geometric rigour of Luca Pacioli’s Platonic solids, reshaped here into useful tools. This world of machines transformed into narrative devices, of enormous pages of notes waiting to be reawakened, welcomes the visitor in a dim light from which emerge the colours of wood, canvas and paper. The interactive component begins in various ways, principally through a modulation of light and voice.

In four of the sections, visitors are invited to choose key words taken from Da Vinci’s lexicon. By saying them aloud, a video is activated in which Leonardo’s drawings appear besides, superimposed with, or reinterpreted by hyper-realistic, or at times almost abstract, video imagery. “In some cases, the elaborations or juxtapositions underline and accentuate the disturbing, subversive quality of Leonardo’s drawings, while in others, they provide a sort of affectionate and ironic counterpoint – an approach that #leonardo would surely have appreciated,” writes Villata. “Thus visitors find themselves in direct contact with numerous examples of Leonardo’s ideas and studies – bird’s eye views, machines for civil and military use, maps, anatomical studies of horses and birds, as well as fearsome images of floods, faces deformed by rage, and melancholic thinkers, but then also poignant or humorous images of dogs, cats and crabs. All of these are accompanied and enriched by sounds, which sometimes come together to suggest a piece of music, and by quotes from Leonardo’s manuscripts.”
The exhibition Leonardo. La macchina dell’immaginazione (Leonardo. The Imagination Machine) – held at Palazzo Reale in Milan from 19 April to 14 July 2019 – is curated by Treccani and Studio Azzurro, with the support of Arthemisia and the technical support of Edoardo Villata, is promoted by Comune di #milano – Cultura, Palazzo Reale and Treccani.

The exhibition is made possible thanks to the contribution of Fondazione Cariplo for Fondazione Treccani Cultura.

The #event is part of Milan’s official celebration – #milano #leonardo 500 – for the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death and is sponsored by the Comitato Nazionale per le celebrazioni dei 500 anni dalla morte di #leonardo da Vinci.

Exhibition sponsors: Polifarma, #leonardo and F.C. Internazionale #milano.

Leonardo. La macchina dell’immaginazione

Palazzo Reale – Piazza Duomo, 12 Milano

19 aprile – 14 luglio 2019

www.palazzorealemilano.it

www.leonardolamacchinadellimmaginazione.it