Paolo Ventura's Short Stories on display in Milan: sets become photo sets filled with imagination

Until April 15, 2022, the Palazzina dei Bagni Misteriosi of the Franco Parenti Theater in Milan hosts the exhibition Short stories by Paolo Ventura (Milan, 1968), curated by thePier Lombardo Association.

The Short Stories are a cycle of works that Paolo Ventura created in his studio in Anghiari upon his return from New York between 2012 and 2015. In a corner of the studio, which is located in an old barn, the artist built a small stage, with several backdrops he painted, and there he began to fabricate short, poetic stories for images. Sometimes the backdrops become real photographic sets inside which Ventura enters, portraying himself or his family as interpreters of those stories; he superimposes pictorial collage work on the photography. A work of handcrafted construction of scenarios populated by puppets, small handmade theatrical sets using salvaged materials that evoke times past.

What he stages are short stories of war, magua, and abandonment, and there are really many characters that the artist himself plays: some of these stories are presented at the exhibition, including the magician, the juggler, and the bird-watching enthusiast.

From his meeting with Andrée Ruth Shammah, director of Eugène Labiche’s play Il delitto di via dell’Orsina, for which he made silhouettes as set design elements, came the collaboration with Teatro Franco Parenti and the project to exhibit his work at Bagni Misteriosi.

For info: https://teatrofrancoparenti.it/

Hours: Monday through Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m.; Sunday from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Tickets: Courtesy admission €3.50. For Parenti audiences: free admission to the exhibition by presenting the show ticket at the Via Botta entrance.

Image: Paolo Ventura, The Birdwatcher

Paolo Ventura's Short Stories on display in Milan: sets become photo sets filled with imagination

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