BORN IN MAC MAHON
GLI EROI DELLA PERIFERIA DI GIOVANNI TESTORI
7 October 2023 – 23 March 2024
THE EXHIBITION
The characters of Giovanni Testori’s Milan come back to life through the creativity of Italian illustrators and return to their neighbourhoods with the students of Milanese schools.
Their names are Dante Pessina, Arialda Repossi, Maria Brasca, Cornelio Binda and Rita Boniardi known as la Gilda: they are some of the main characters in I segreti di Milano, the saga that portraits an intense and vivid Milan narrated by Giovanni Testori between 1958 and 1961. Their popular epic takes place in that area of the city that has via Mac Mahon as its axis, a road that from the center creeps into the heart of the north-west suburbs, crosses Ponte della Ghisolfa between Bovisa, Vialba and Roserio, and continues with a lunge on Giambellino.
Born in Mac Mahon is the title of the exhibition that will bring these beloved characters to life in the reinterpretation of 20 illustrators. Installations, images, videos and sounds will populate the rooms of Casa Testori starting from 7 october. Casa Testori is the place where the writer who imagined and told these characters over 60 years ago used to live .
The illustrators were asked, through their personal imagination and sensitivity, to connect to nowadays the characters who had given life to an extraordinary popular epic, preserving their spirit and restoring their vital energy. Throughout the exhibition, the public will have real encounters, thanks to creative and evocative installations developed by the individual artists, so that Testori’s human comedy will be rendered as if on stage, through sequences and situations that recall, room after room, the theatrical acts. The ending is unscheduled: the artists Danilo Sciorilli and Alberto Montorfano were asked to deal with two characters from Testori’s last creative season, to testify how dramatically his vision of Milan has changed: these characters are Riboldi Gino from In exitu and Madame “La Flüte” from Gli Angeli dello Sterminio.
Fotografie: Michele Alberto Sereni
The Born in Mac Mahon project leaves the confines of Casa Testori to live in the neighbourhoods described by Testori in his novels thanks to the high school students living in the area between Via Mac Mahon, Ponte della Ghisolfa, Bovisa and the districts on the north-western outskirts of Milan, with the addition of Giambellino. The schools involved are Bottoni, Alexis Carrell, Marconi and Boccioni high school, but Manzoni, Beccaria and Carducci high school will be involved in the future with dedicated proposals. In this journey of knowledge and restitution, students will be hosted at the Franco Parenti Theater to meet Testori through the words of scholars and actors, and in the end they will have the opportunity to visit the exhibition at Casa Testori.
The project also provides that students work, starting from Testori’s words, with creative writing teachers and with the illustrators involved in the Born in Mac Mahon exhibition to create posters that reinterpret Testori’s places in their neighbourhood.
Finally, the educational department of Casa Testori has created special itineraries within the exhibition for all kinds of schools to discover together what a character is, how it is constructed, how it can be told and what makes it unforgettable. These activities will be intended to support teaching, with a focus on some specific subjects such as Italian, history of art and civic education.
Discover the educational proposal for schools
The Born in Mac Mahon exhibition and the project with schools were made possible thanks to the support of Fondazione Cariplo and Intesa San Paolo.
Testorian characters:
• Cornelio Binda il pugile de Il Ponte della Ghisolfa
• Maria Brasca la protagonista de La Maria Brasca
• Rita Boniardi da La Gilda del Mac Mahon
• Rinaldo Cattaneo da La Nebbia al Giambellino
• Duilio Morini da Il Ponte della Ghisolfa
• Rina Oliva e Carlo Villa i fidanzati de Il Fabbricone
• Dante Pessina il protagonista de Il dio di Roserio
• Raffaele ed Enrica i cognati amanti da La Gilda del Mac Mahon
• Redenta Restelli l’anima de Il Fabbricone
• Arialda Repossi la protagonista de L’Arialda
• Gino Riboldi il protagonista di In exitu
• Madame La Flüte, de Gli Angeli dello sterminio
The exhibition, curated by Francesco Franchi and Matteo Riva, presents the works of Cristina Amodeo, Massimiliano Aurelio, Jacopo Baco, Alessandro Baronciani, Luca Font, Riccardo Guasco, Jeugov, Martoz, Sarah Mazzetti, Anna Parini, Gio Pastori, Francesco Poroli, Jacopo Rosati, Giulia Sagramola, Steiner&Wolinska, Marianna Tomaselli, Elisa Seitzinger with the participation of the artists Alberto Montorfano and Danilo Sciorilli.
7 October 2023 – 23 March 2024
CASA TESTORI
CATALOGUE AND GRAPHIC PROJECT: curated by Paper Paper Studio
PRESS OFFICE: Maria Grazia Vernuccio Tel. +393351282864 | mariagrazia.vernuccio@mgvcommunication.it