Mens sana in corpore sano • Leica Galerie Milano

Who is really behind the men and women of faith? We are often used to conceiving priests, nuns and friars as subjects almost detached from reality; the role they play appears to us prevalent enough to be able to totally eclipse the space of the single individual. What is certain is that they operate in a context steeped in rules and regulations to be respected, in which everything has to look serious and upright, while any type of personal initiative is condemned.

The work Mens sana in corpore sano by Stefano Guindani develops around this social question and was realized thanks to the Leica SL2, a camera of the Leica SL System, the professional mirrorless system by Leica created for and with photographers. It features state-of-the-art technology and a build quality Made in Germany, with functional and intuitive operational concept.

The photographs on display leverage the human aspect of subjects, depicting an extraordinary dedication and a unique predisposition for fun, blended with a disruptive vitality. As in Habemus Papam, by Nanni Moretti, with polite irony, lightness and a poetic language, the photographer makes us participate in every story he tells: suspended moments, hinted smiles and essential color combinations make us perceive the ordinary person, the friend neighborhood, before the Church official.

Each image reveals a flourishing background of formative testaments, a game that is played on the neutral field of sharing, where sacrifice – meant as a symbolic act of effort joins the human desire to replace the walls of ignorance with the bridges of aggregation. Guindani’s clerics play soccer, scrutinize golf, dedicate themselves to surfing; they are nonconformist and daring, as in Sorrentino’s interpretation of the Pope figure in The Young Pope. Through exemplary visual grammar, at times symbolic and devoid of any rhetoric, a dynamic and surprising narrative appears before our eyes, capable of causing a semantic revolution in the collective imagination.

Mens sana in corpore sano • Stefano Guindani
Edited by Denis Curti

September 23rd to November 26th, 2022

Tuesday to Saturday | h 10.00 – 14.00 / 15.00 – 19.00

Free entrance

Leica Galerie Milano
Via Giuseppe Mengoni, 4
20121, Milano