The Venue
This impressive installation is the first public art intervention by Emilio Isgrò. Donated by the artist to the Municipality of Milan for the new square dedicated to Gino Valle, it is part of the redevelopment plan of the former industrial area of Portello. The work features an extract taken from Il ponte della Ghisolfa, a collection of novels on the suburbs of Milan published by Giovanni Testori in 1958. Isgrò intervention on the text typically makes use of his conceptual expedient of erasure that obscures some words of the text. The remaining words say: “From the bridge that the street lamps illuminated / of tremendous tremor / elsewhere”. The artist thus emphasizes the cognitive and visual power of words.