Milan, Chamber of Commerce is enriched with a major work by Emilio Isgrò

It was presented yesterday, Thursday, March 30, at the Chamber of Commerce of Milan, Monza-Brianza and Lodi, in its historic headquarters in Via Meravigli in Milan, the work Prologue to Relativity by Emilio Isgrò (Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, 1937), which the artist conceived starting from a document preserved in the Chamber’s own archives, the letter sent to the Chamber of Commerce by Hermann Einstein, father of the famous Albert. The Einstein family resided, in fact, in Milan in the last years of the 19th century, moving their business activities from Pavia to the Lombard capital for “greater opportunity,” as also reported in the archival document. In the letter, dated Feb. 23, 1899, Einstein announced that he had moved to Milan with his dynamo and electric motor business.

Isgrò imagined a work of imposing dimensions (212x300 cm), in which the text of Hermann Einstein’s letter, reinterpreted through erasure, the artist’s stylistic signature, dialogues with the physicist’s iconic silhouette. Thus takes shape a twofold homage: on the one hand to the brilliant author of the theory of relativity and, on the other, to the Chamber of Commerce as a pivotal institution of the industriousness of Milan and Lombardy.

The work, created with the technical support of TheFabLab by employing the latest digital processing technologies on milled fiber cement panels and completed with manual interventions at the erasures, will add to the artistic heritage that the Chamber of Commerce has collected over the years, helping to invest in the cultural sector as the pivot and engine of our country’s economic development, as well as a constituent element of Italian identity, a driver of innovation for the entire economic system, as it acts as an activator of growth in other sectors of the productive fabric, from tourism to creative-driven manufacturing, contributing significantly to improving the quality of life and the attractiveness of the territory, in terms of investment, talent, and tourists.

“Discovering that letter was not easy for me when I went rummaging through the papers of the Via Meravigli building to find something to offer to the attention of those who are in a hurry or have lost the memory of a respectable past on all levels: cultural no less than entrepreneurial and civic,” says Emilio Isgrò. "My eye fell on Hermann’s letter, and I understood that that was the document to be erased to reactivate the spirit of enterprise that makes Milan irreplaceable among the cities of the world and Europe. No Madonnina, no Duomo for once. Since the mysterious sender was simply the father of a little boy named Albert (Albert Einstein in full) champion of all erasures still possible. It is enough for me to ask a question: whether we think this world is still or moving. I see it as very still, stuck, despite the fact that it is shot through with wars and conflicts. In fact it is stationary precisely because of that. Because weapons have taken the place of the arts, meaning by the word art also the art of living and thinking. Of course, an artist has no answers to give. But at least he can ask some questions. I have already asked them with the title of my work, Prologue to Relativity. Of course Hermann Einstein did not know what kind of son he had given birth to. Nor could young Albert have imagined what kind of universe he would leave behind by reading it through lenses other than those indicated by Galileo and Newton. Just as it is no small matter that the great scientist, who always spoke English with a strong German accent, spoke Italian instead with an unmistakable Milanese accent. All this has found (and can find) its ancient, renewable roots in Milan, in an unknowing letter from over a century ago, now kept in the safe of a Lombard archive. Perhaps, as an artist, I have forced things a bit. But it is as an artist that I have been called upon, and when artists are called upon by serious institutions like the Chamber of Commerce, it means that philosophers are no longer needed. On the other hand, it is also true that where an artist dares to erase codified knowledge and turn it into pure energy, sooner or later there will be a daring little entrepreneur who plants a factory to employ a hundred workers."

The artistic elaboration of one of the most important records preserved in the Chamber Archives becomes a new narrative that allows the Chamber to strengthen its bond with the city and its productive fabric.

“The attractiveness of Milan has deep roots,” said Carlo Sangalli, president of the Milan, Monza Brianza and Lodi Chamber of Commerce, “and this is well demonstrated by the letter of Hermann Einstein, German entrepreneur father of Albert, who at the end of the 19th century wanted to transfer his business to our metropolis through the Chamber of Commerce. A letter that inspired Emilio Isgrò’s work the ”Prologue to Relativity“ with which the Master was able to represent today, in his unique style, the value of Milan as an open city, capable of welcoming and renewing the spirit of enterprise every time.”

Emilio Isgrò - an artist as well as a poet, novelist and playwright - gave life with his “erasures” to one of the most revolutionary and original operations in the international art scene of the second half of the 20th century. Isgrò was invited to four Venice biennials and won first prize at the São Paulo Biennale (1977). He has exhibited in prestigious international museums such as the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, MoMA in New York, and the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation in Venice. Isgrò has been the protagonist of numerous anthological exhibitions: at the Centro Pecci in Prato, the Taksim Sanat Galerisi in Istanbul, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, the Palazzo Reale and the Gallerie d’Italia in Milan, and the Fondazione Cini in Venice. In 2022, the artist created the monumental solo exhibition Isgrò cancels Brixia in Brescia. To date, several of Isgrò’s works are exhibited at prestigious institutions; among them, the work Colui che Sono (2020) is in the collections of the Quirinale and Cancellazione del debito pubblico (2011) is exhibited in the spaces of Bocconi University. His novels include The Adventurous Life of Emilio Isgrò in the testimonies of statesmen, writers, artists, parliamentarians, actors, relatives, family members, friends, and anonymous citizens, nominated for the Strega Prize. For the theater, he wrote the trilogy L’Orestea di Gibellina, performed for three years on the ruins of the earthquake-destroyed city, launching the Orestiadi International Festival. His latest collection of verse published by Guanda, is Yes to the Night.

Milan, Chamber of Commerce is enriched with a major work by Emilio Isgrò

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