FOTOROMANZO TESTORI. IMMAGINI DI UNA VITA
A project by Casa Testori
Casa Testori
4 march – 28 july 2023
Video di Stefano Cozzi
The exhibition FOTOROMANZO TESTORI Immagini di una vita has opened to the public in the spaces of Casa Testori, the home of one of the most important protagonists of the cultural life in the second half of the 20th century, whose birth centenary is celebrated in 2023. The exhibition was the result of an extensive research work in the archives of agencies, theaters, newspapers, foundations and museums carried out by Giovanni Testori Association and Casa Testori in recent years. An exploration that has brought out an extraordinary heritage that includes photographs capable of documenting the private life of Testori and his various activities as a writer, playwright, art critic, painter… The result achieved is a very engaging novel in images where the public and private Testori are always on a single register: in front of the lens Testori communicates the same energy, passion and emotional charge. That’s the reason that led to the development of a path where the two floors intertwine. A valid example of this feature is the case of the numerous photographs with family members taken in the large house of Novate Milanese that reveal an approach to relationships in the name of sympathy and informality, a type of approach that also emerges in the public sphere.
Installation view ©Michele Alberto Sereni
It’s not a case that the story of Fotoromanzo Testori began with images portraying the writer with his mother Lina, a key figure in his life, who returns many times in his literary and theatrical works. During the research, surprising family materials have emerged such as a photo album with shots taken on January 6, 1957 in Lasnigo (CO), Lina’s hometown in the Larian Triangle. The hugs, the toasts, the smiles mix in with melancholic glances at the winter landscape, so dear to Testori. “Navigare in acque borromaiche” is the title on display, which is the title of a photo shoot made in 1948, where Testori poses with his father Edoardo among the gardens of Isola Bella and on the shores of Lake Maggiore. A sequence that seems to aim at building a book for himself. Family life is also documented by festive super 8 videos projected in Casa Testori’s living room.
In the section “Città culla”, the very rich series of images that accompany the release of “I segreti di Milano”, Testori’s first great narrative and theatrical adventure emerges. In these shots we discover the writer initially in a summer sequence, in shirt sleeves on the Ghisolfa bridge and in Mac Mahon street, and then in winter, with his coat in Parco Sempione, playing with the bars of the gates pretending to be in prison (those were the days of the sensational sequestration of “L’Arialda”), or while posing among the railing houses together with Franca Valeri, who in 1960 had staged “La Maria Brasca” for the first time, in the role of the emancipated protagonist.
The photos by Renato Grignani and Giorgio Soavi showed us the interiors – a real discovery – of the studio in 8 Brera street, this was the stage of a thousand meetings and for many years the atelier of Testori the painter. “8058595” is the title of the section: the number of that studio rang continuously. “Le mie vacanze” is the section that offered a fun roundup of images where you discover a “mountainous” Testori, relaxed and cheerful in the company of his sisters, nephews and friends.
The itinerary on the ground floor ended with a video installation dedicated to a photograph that Testori was particularly attached of: it is the one taken by Giorgio Lotti on May 20, 1974 on the occasion of Renata Tebaldi’s concert for her 30 years of activity at the Teatro alla Scala. The photo portrays Giovanni Testori standing under the stage, while enthusiastically applauding his favorite soprano to whom he had asked as an encore to sing “Non ti scordar di me”. “I felt like I was ‘skewered’ by that photo,” he wrote some time later in the Corriere della Sera.
The section “Mes amis”, which unfolded on Casa Testori’s stairs, is the story of the dearest and most lasting friendships, starting with the fundamental one with Roberto Longhi, documented by a sequence of shots taken during the party for the 100th number of Paragone, the art criticism and literature magazine founded by the great art historian in 1950. However, the list of friends is long: Ennio Morlotti, Renato Guttuso, Eduardo De Filippo, Ermanno Olmi, Domenico Porzio, Giorgio Soavi, Ornella Vanoni, Mario Soldati, Alberto Arbasino and many, many others.
The list of friendships finds its culmination in the images of Testori with the “Queens”, the actresses who have brought his texts in theater: from Franca Valeri to Rina Morelli, from Pupella Maggio to Lilla Brignone and Mariangela Melato, from Luisa Rossi to Francesca Benedetti and Adriana Innocenti.
On Casa Testori’s upper floor, the scene was dominated by the theater through the photographs by Giuseppe Pino depicting the epic of Salone Pier Lombardo’s birth, now the Franco Parenti Theater. “Franco Primo” is the title of this section followed by “Franco Secondo” related to the partnership with another great actor, Franco Branciaroli, pictured through the shots of Valerio Soffientini and, more specifically, through the photos dedicated to the unforgettable staging of “In Exitu” at the Central Station of Milan in December 1989. A historic photograph taken by Ennio Barbera depicting a boy who died of an overdose at Bovisa was the starting point for this intense and dramatic text.
A room has been dedicated to the writer’s relationship with young people. There are many shots in which Testori is portrayed during public meetings, often in schools, or in cultural centers: a video offers some moments of the debate with Alberto Moravia on the “Promessi Sposi” which took place in Milan in 1984 in front of an impressive crowd of young people. The relationship with young people is a convinced and passionate one in which Testori spent himself without saving energy. It had happened also with the boys of the Compagnia dell’Arca of Forlì, with whom he had staged one of his texts, “Interrogatorio a Maria”, then represented in hundreds of replicas throughout Italy. One of these took place in Castelgandolfo, in the presence of Pope Giovanni Paolo II: a meeting documented by numerous images.
In Testori’s studio we discover his dimension as a “nomadic writer”: a series of photographs showed how it was his habit to work on novels or theatrical texts in public situations: on park benches, at bar tables, even on trams. Being in contact with real life worked for him as a necessary creative trigger.
The corridor on the first floor hosted a scenographic installation of Testori’s passport photos, from the 50s to the 80s. All around it, there were the portraits signed by Armin Linke, Giorgio Lotti, Maria Mulas, Giovanni Giovannetti, Leonardo Cennamo, Carla Cerati and Uliano Lucas: all were characterized by the search for intensity and depth of the gaze.
The exhibition ended with the room entitled “Exit”, a collection of images from Testori’s last years, forced to curb public appearances due to his health conditions. These photos are striking for the depth of his hollow and intense look. The shots were accompanied by the video of an interview conducted by Riccardo Bonacina for RaiDue a few weeks before his death in his room at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan.
«More than an exhibition, Fotoromanzo Testori wants to be a journey through the writer’s life. It’s him who takes visitors by the hand and accompanies them through a sequence of banners where the images dialogue with his phrases. Sometimes it is his voice that acts as a guide; a voice that produces every time an emotional shock, just as if you were listening to a page of a novel», explains Giuseppe Frangi, president of the Giovanni Testori Association, the institution that manages the writer’s legacy.«The exhibition is made possible by the continuous acquisitions that have enriched the Testori Archive in recent years, it is an important heritage available for consultation to many scholars and it has allowed insights of great interest on the figure and work of Testori and on Italian culture of the twentieth century».
