A sky in motion: Giovanni Frangi brings his panoramas to Malpensa Airport

Art merges with travel atMilan Malpensa Airport’s Milan Gate, where Panorama, the new exhibition by Giovanni Frangi (Milan, 1959), is on view from Feb. 12 to April 2025. The initiative, part of the Event Horizon cycle conceived by Matteo Pacini, is promoted by SEA-Aeroporti di Milano and the City of Milan.

After Fabio Viale ’s material interpretations and Matteo Mezzadri’s urban visions, Frangi brings the sky to the stage, making it the absolute protagonist of a monumental pictorial work. Through the power of color and the dynamism of brushstrokes, the Milanese artist transforms the sky into a symbolic element, a place of passage in which time, transience and the human condition are intertwined.

“Nature feeds on us only when we are children; and we dive into her unaware. Without knowing it, when we grow up, one day at random, we find that we have had indigestion: in fact, we no longer see her. She inhabits us; she has taken us away. By now it is our unreality that has stolen the world,” argues John Frangi.

A sky in perpetual change

Panorama proposes aninterpretation of the sky that goes beyond its visual representation. Clouds and light variations evoke universal moods. Light alternates with shadow in a continuous tension, while quick, textural brushstrokes capture the essence of a sky in perpetual transformation. Frangi does not just paint the sky: he makes it a mirror of emotions, an invitation to stop and contemplate the passing of time.

Theairport, a place of transit par excellence, thus becomes a space for reflection. The Magic Threshold of the Milan Gate interrupts the architectural continuity to transport the traveler into a suspended dimension, a kind of space-time gateway that recalls the very idea of theEvent Horizon, the limit beyond which space and time merge.

A dialogue with art history

With Panorama, Frangi establishes an ideal dialogue with the great masters of painting. From the luminous skies of Tiepolo and Veronese to the intimate atmospheres of Constable, to the chromatic tensions of Rothko and the expressionist brushstrokes of Nolde, the artist reworks suggestions from the past in a contemporary vision.

Color becomes a narrative tool. The deep blues, stormy grays and blinding whites not only describe atmospheric phenomena, but symbolically represent the tension between darkness and light, between disquiet and hope. The viewer is called to lose himself in these visions, allowing himself to be transported into an immersive experience that stimulates inner reflection.

The exhibition is enriched by two new projects that expand the visual experience. The first, Gotthard Pass, is a digital graphic work based on photographic shots of the mountain pass of the same name. Consisting of 18 mountain views, the project integrates into the architectural path of the airport, accompanying travelers along the access tunnels to the Milan Gate. The second project, Soleil levant, is a 120-second video installation that captures the evolution of a Milanese sunrise. A work that plays on slowness and the perception of time, offering an alternative to the daily frenzy.

As curator Matteo Pacini points out, “Each exhibition in this cycle is a stimulus for reflection. With Giovanni Frangi’s ”Panorama“ exhibition, the invitation is to rediscover our relationship with nature and mainly with the sky, too often forgotten in the daily frenzy. Frangi’s works are not just a representation of nature, but a vehicle for reflecting on interiority and our place in the world. Each of Frangi’s skies is a mirror of human emotions, an inner landscape in which time seems to suspend itself.”

Notes on the artist

Born in Milan in 1959, Giovanni Frangi studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, making his debut in 1983 at La Bussola Gallery in Turin. Throughout his career he has exhibited in prestigious venues, from MAXXI in Rome to MART in Rovereto, from the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Udine to the Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome. Grandson of critic and writer Giovanni Testori, Frangi pursues a pictorial research focused on nature, exploring landscape as a symbolic dimension.

A sky in motion: Giovanni Frangi brings his panoramas to Malpensa Airport

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