City Lights, 2015-2023
15 illuminated signs, 5 steel poles on concrete plinth, automatic timer,
1040 × ⌀ 670 cm

A circle of tall metal poles, fifteen large multicolored neon signs,  as a large bouquet of luminous flowers placed in the center of the new CityLife district, which has risen where the gates of the Milan Trade Fair once stood. On each pole appear, illuminated at night, three signs of companies, logos, and trademarks: motorcycle manufacturers, an art gallery, a publisher, a fashion designer, a newspaper, once-famous companies in electronics, mechanical industry, chemistry, a photo agency, a bank. All companies that have made the economic, social, and cultural history of Milan and that have long since closed their doors. With their diverse styles, colors, and shapes that testify to the changes in taste and collective sensitivity, the signs trace the history of a city that, since the unification of Italy, has always thought of itself as the epicenter of the economy and renewal of the entire country, united under the sign of a “progress” tenaciously sought, although more than once it has proven to be a fragile or illusory myth. Italian modernity reappears in the form of a luminous and festive phantasmagoria, an urban “beacon” that simultaneously engages in a dialogue with the constructions of the new district, particularly its three iconic towers, and offers itself to passersby for a close-up view, a stop, and an unexpected thought. With its iridescent livery, City Lights tells in an immediately comprehensible form the passage from the era of industry, working-class labor, and proudly Italian culture and products of the mind to our present “global” era, the dematerialization of goods and labor, and the mixture of traditions, languages, and cultures.

Artline Collection, Milan