It is exactly twenty years since I joined the Strategic Committee of the City of Milan in June 2006, invited by newly elected Mayor Letizia Moratti, with whom I had shared the electoral campaign and an important role within her independent Civic List. It was an experience that allowed me to know this extraordinary woman more closely. Today she tells her story in The Importance of Believing in Dreams (Solferino Libri), a transparent and deeply personal autobiography that unfolds between encounters with world leaders and the desperate young people welcomed and saved at San Patrignano. Coincidentally, I believe in dreams too. A belief echoed by the large mural recently created by Ivan Tresoldi at Superstudio Più, bearing the words: "Only Dreaming Will Keep Us Awake."

Sometimes an exhibition is also an invitation to see a city with different eyes. This is the case of the retrospective dedicated to Arnaldo Pomodoro at the Gallerie d’Italia, which becomes the starting point for a small Milanese journey all the way to his fascinating Labyrinth in the Tortona District. Two places, one single narrative: that of an artist capable of transforming matter, space, and imagination.

There are exhibitions that tell the story of an artist, and others that make you want to follow their traces across the city. That is exactly what happened to me when I visited the Arnaldo Pomodoro exhibition at the Gallerie d’Italia in Piazza della Scala. The exhibition retraces his long career through sculptures, drawings, and archival materials, going beyond the most well-known image of his iconic bronze spheres.

Amid scenarios of nuclear war, unreachable drones, phantom weapons that could destroy the entire world, and while tyrants are urged not to let up, humanity continues its tortuous path, increasingly accompanied by AI. AI often proves to be more intelligent and creative than us. From science to fashion.

The great unknown that hovers over everything and that will shape our future, even in the smallest things, seems to be Artificial Intelligence. Its evolution is not counted in years, but in months, perhaps even days.

Although Giuseppe Pino, like almost all great artists, lived between light and shadow, curiosity and distrust, irony and pessimism — in a constant alternation of emotions — and although uncovering his true soul was never easy, Giulia Borioli, who shared years of life and work with him, paints a portrait that helps us understand who this important photographer really was. Superstudio 13, where he worked for so many years, has now once again become his home.

Had it not been for an inconvenience, Giuseppe Giovanni Pino — one of the most admired portrait photographers in the world — might never have existed.

Definitely a man who makes headlines: when he is the protagonist of groundbreaking performances in the art world, when he enters politics, when he erupts in outbursts, and even when he remains silent, in suffering. Today, as he enters a new phase of his life, I recall with respect the occasions we shared and the past connections with Superstudio.

When Vittorio Sgarbi first appeared on the Milan scene, it was Giorgio Armani who invited him, at his then-headquarters on Via Durini, to comment on the new wave of fashion beginning to absorb Japanese influence.

50 years of journalism. A gold medal from the Order of Journalists to remember it. An official ceremony in the beautiful frescoed Hall of Honour of the Institute for the Blind. An audience of “colleagues” with white hair, moved, like me, in receiving an award that highlights lives dedicated to communication and to others. I am there, and I ask myself: “already?”
A medal that stands alongside the precious Ambrogino d’Oro that Mayor Pisapia awarded me in 2014. I think of my twenties, when I began my path in the newsroom of Ottagono, my professional growth through the many magazines I collaborated with, directed or created. From Vogue to Lei to Donna to Madame Figaro and countless others up to today, with our AT. And of the many books I have edited or written.
As a journalist I discovered the world and extraordinary people. I opened my heart and my mind. With this background I entered the world of events, founding, together with my husband Flavio Lucchini, the Superstudio group: another way of communicating, live, wide open to innovation, to the arts, to science, to technology, to creativity and much more. I still feel like the young aspiring journalist I once was, curious and restless, ready for challenges to anticipate the future.
I dedicate this medal to those who have followed us this far, from fifty years ago to today. Tomorrow is another day.

Now back in the spotlight, though in truth he never faded, the great American photographer/artist Man Ray (1890-1976) is on view until January 11 at Palazzo Reale, Milan, with a photographic exhibition that highlights his entire dadaist, surrealist, and forward-looking multitasking poetics across photography, art, design, fashion, cinema, and experimentation. For me it brought back the unforgettable memory I had kept in my heart.

Today the exhibition on Man Ray opens at Palazzo Reale. There are encounters that change your life, moments that become eternal, Masters who in just a few hours make you understand an entire world. This is what happened to me with Man Ray, whom I met in Paris in his atelier for a feature in L’Uomo Vogue. I was very young and intimidated by the idea of meeting a Myth.

Sometimes the past knocks on the door, all at once. This autumn, Milan paid homage to the legends of yesterday. My journey down memory lane began with the exhibition dedicated to Aldo Fallai at Armani/Silos, followed by the Ballo&Ballo show at Castello Sforzesco, the photography exhibition of Ugo Mulas at Palazzo Reale, and Elio Fiorucci at Triennale, culminating in the Franco Moschino exhibition marking 30 years since his passing, held at our MyOwnGallery.
Next year will mark 25 years of Superstudio Più in Via Tortona—a visionary initiative that played a role in reshaping the city through creativity. It has been a journey through fashion, art, and photography, one I was fortunate to partake in, and whose milestones I am pleased to reflect on here.

Invited by Fabiana Giacomotti, fashion editor of Il Foglio, to write for the prestigious newspaper, the co-founder and president of Superstudio Group, with a background leading important magazines such as Vogue Donna and Madame Class Figaro, retraces the journey of Italian fashion, of which she has been a witness from the 1970s to today. She hopes that stakeholders will find a way to overcome the crisis and restore its prestige. (Il Foglio, November 7, 2024, Fashion Supplement)

MUDEC dedicates to Niki de Saint Phalle, an eclectic and multifaceted artist, a beautiful exhibition, in Italy the first comprehensive retrospective that traces her entire artistic career in dialogue with her personal life marked by trauma and pain, often reworked through art. The colorful, polyform, maternal and joyful works thus acquire a new and deeper meaning, and the exhibition is an opportunity to deepen our knowledge of Niki de Saint Phalle as an artist and as a woman. Gisella Borioli, president of Superstudio, visited it, reliving the emotions of her first encounters with her Nanas.

Vogue Italia is celebrating 60 years, a milestone birthday, and the “Sixty Years Of Vogue Italia” exhibition at Palazzo Clerici brings its history to life through its 60 most iconic covers. It was Flavio Lucchini who created the Italian edition of Vogue and for a full 17 years, as art director, he animated the magazine, revolutionizing the entire fashion publishing industry. Alongside him was his wife Gisella Borioli. Today, the founders of Superstudio, do not forget those incredible years and continue to search for beauty in each of their projects.

The refined ballo&ballo exhibition at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan dedicated to the legendary photographer Aldo Ballo and his wife MariRosa, reminded me of distant times when I had the privilege of working with them for Ottagono magazine. The essential and perfect photos, of absolute beauty, told with light and shadow the evolution of design without any other artifice. Sometimes Aldo would introduce a living, almost casual presence into them. Once it was my turn, in an unforgettable photo.
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