Nino Migliori

The images on display at the former synagogue of Reggio Emilia are the outcome of a reconnaissance conducted by Nino Migliori (born in Bologna, in 1926) of two different slaughterhouses. One, conducted in 2008, is of a small village slaughterhouse in Caccamo (Palermo), and the other, conducted in 2010, is of the large, modern Inalca abattoir in Castelvetro (Modena). Consistently with his uninterrupted investigation and experimentation work, and venturing into studies of materials and writing with light using the photographic medium – always in an ongoing dialogue with experiences in painting and other art forms –, Migliori has taken Polaroid shots and worked on them while the image was gradually forming in the 7-10 minutes after they were taken, tracing black marks and changing the colours, so as to transform and enhance the original vision. The images were then scanned and reprinted in the format now on display in the exhibit. We thus have before us these dark images, pervaded by a deep and sombre red with black marks dancing within, and next to the flesh and blood clots we can catch glimpses of fragments of backbone and ribs. Transpiring from this visionary interpretation of what is left of the animal is the state of mind of someone confronting life's last landing stage, the fragility of the body and a sacrificial act taking place in absolute silence, the silence of someone who is aware that there is no escaping from one's destiny. While Nino Migliori's experimentations in the Fifties already showed a degree of contiguity with some experiences of European Informal Art (Wols, Tàpies, Burri), the images from Cruor show associations with other works, from Annibale Carracci's Butcher's Shop (1585) to Rembrandt's Flayed Ox (1655), from Chaïm Soutine's Boeuf Écorché (1924) to Francis Bacon's Painting (1946) and Damien Hirst's In nomine Patris (2004-2005). 
 

Nino Migliori is a photographer and one of the most authoritative voices in Europe’s culture of the image. His beginnings appear to be divided between neorealist photography and a tendency to experiment on materials with an entirely original and novel approach. Since the late Sixties his work has acquired conceptual significance and in subsequent years this trend has gradually become predominant. He is one of the few photographers in Italy to have pursued the investigations of the avant-garde movements in their reflections on iconographic languages, using photography as the central pivot of the imagination and of contemporary formal research. Every one of his works is the result of a precise project on the power of the image, a theme that has characterized his entire production. He is the author who best represents the extraordinary adventure of photography, which started off as a documentary tool and has gone on to acquire values and contents associated with art, experimentation and play.