MILAN.- Galleria Campari presents Bar Stories on Camera. Galleria Campari / Magnum Photos from today Wednesday 4 October 2023 until Tuesday 30 April 2024 will be on view in the Galleria Campari spaces in Sesto San Giovanni, Milan.

The exhibition, curated by Galleria Campari, presents 90 photographs from the 1930s to the early 2000s recounting the history of the world of the bar through 48 images from the Galleria Campari Historical Archive and 42 shots by 24 international photographers from the Magnum Photos agency, including Robert Capa, Elliott Erwitt, Martin Parr and Ferdinando Scianna.

Bar Stories on Camera. Galleria Campari / Magnum Photos is the first exhibition to be staged by Galleria Campari in partnership with Magnum Photos.

Split into three thematic sections – ‘Sharing Moments’, ‘Bar Campari’ and ‘The Icons’ – the exhibition features images that put together a narrative made up of stories, rituals and characters from Italy and the world. The collection of images from the Galleria Campari Archives and the shots of the great Magnum photographers give life to a narrative that explores the theme from all angles, recounted through the lens of time. From the dialogue arising between various media, supports, eras and imagery, the multifaceted vitality of the bar world over a unique historical period – one that now feels both recent and remote – is portrayed, in an exploration of its social connotations as a place of meeting, aggregation, leisure and cultural exchange, and one where Campari has been a key protagonist ever since 1860.

The exhibition also features a fourth section, ‘Campari Memories’, which features a large selection of recipe books and cocktail compendia from the late-nineteenth century to the 2000s, as well as original objects and ephemera linked to the bar, some of which have never been exhibited before: menus, letterheads, signage, glasses, mixing tools, posters and vintage advertising objects.

Galleria Campari is an evocative space but also a centre for research and cultural production that focuses its activities on what has made Milan and Italy great: art, design, the ability to create through innovation resting on the solid foundations provided by tradition.