At Mudec Impressions of the East and family portrait by Erwitt. The two autumn-winter exhibitions
For autumn 2019, MUDEC presents the MUDEC East project, which touches all the museum's exhibition spaces and offers a comprehensive narrative - from an artistic, historical and ethnographic perspective - of the mutual exchanges between Japan and Europe over the course of time and the cultural encounter between the two worlds.
"Impressions of the East. Art and Collecting between Europe and Japan” is an exhibition that chronicles, through a wide and varied selection of works from Italy and abroad, the infatuation with all things Japanese that permeated Western artistic culture between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, especially in France and Italy.
On display over 170 works - paintings, prints, furnishings, sculptures and objects of applied art - coming from important Italian and European museums and private collectors.
"When Japan discovered Italy" shines a light, through a number of model cases, on the early relations between Italy and the Japanese world, and explores the imagery that began taking shape on both sides, in a crucial moment of Europe’s opening to the world, a phase that many scholars identify as the dawn of globalization.
Underpinning the project is the ambitious goal of offering visitors the historical milestones that paved the way to and marked the encounter between these two cultures. The path, divided into two main sections, explores Western fascination towards Japan, the first moments of contact and the different ways of relating between the two countries from 1585 to 1890.
The two exhibitions of the MUDEC EAST project will be open to the public until 2 February 2020.
From 16 October, the MUDEC PHOTO space hosts the exhibition "Elliott Erwitt. Family": 60 shots by the legendary American photographer, at the venerable age of 91, give a powerful description of his longstanding career and represent the various facets of a concept as ineffable and all-embracing as family.
The collection, selected for Mudec Photo by Erwitt and Biba Giacchetti, curator of the exhibition, alternates ironic images with social cross-sections, nude weddings, large or unique families, metaphors and "open" endings, such as the celebrated photo of the wedding in Bratsk.
The exhibition, promoted by the Cultural Department of the Municipality of Milan and by 24 ORE Cultura-24 ORE Group, which is also the producer, will be open to the public until 15 March 2020.
For more information: