Maddalena Molteni Centre Pompidou Paris

A whole city, described in such a degree of detail that it breaks down into an infinite number of types and designs. The experience of Paris, one of the world’s most frequently visited cities, offers an opportunity to discover one’s own interpretation of the place. Maddalena Molteni chooses the balcony as the element describing the design of the façade, representing its historical evolution and the evolution of taste in the design of a detail of its ornamentation which also serves a functional purpose. The balcony is a part of the façade which often ends up playing a secondary role: the photographer brings it back into the foreground, describing all the balconies she meets along her way with all the dedication of a cataloguer. The study leads her to interpret the façade of the Pompidou Centre as a composition of the balconies of our day.

The choice of working in black and white reveals the photograph as an etching: and so the design of the typically Parisian wrought iron balcony is reinforced until it marks the background of the façades from which it emerges. With a different point of view every time, reflecting on the message each balcony has in its own context.

 

Mara Corradi