Photographs from the Future
The 1985 Milan Fair and the world to come, as captured in color by Gianni Berengo Gardin
Televisione interattiva via fibra ottica alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 Televisione interattiva via fibra ottica alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 (14/04/1985 - 23/04/1985) by Berengo Gardin, GianniFondazione Fiera Milano
The 1985 Milan Fair, the sixty-third in the series, was one that would go down in history as a watershed between the traditions of the past and the ground-breaking promise of the future.
Gruppo di studenti presso il padiglione SIP alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 Gruppo di studenti presso il padiglione SIP alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 (14/04/1985 - 23/04/1985) by Berengo Gardin, GianniFondazione Fiera Milano
Widely chronicled and analysed from different points of view, it was a show with a difference, starting from the transformation of its name, the first step towards a new identity, in the attempt to renew a format that needed to change to keep abreast of the times.
It was, therefore, a major moment, and as such called for major names in photography to be recorded with due importance.
Two of those names that year were Gianni Berengo Gardin and Gabriele Basilico, each assigned the special task of producing a unique reportage of artistic value to chronicle the epoch-making event.
Much has been said and written of the huge corpus of pictures they produced, but of particular note is the curious attention focused by Berengo Gardin on one specific pavilion built on great expectations. It was the pavilion of the future.
Addetto in bicicletta alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 Addetto in bicicletta alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 (14/04/1985 - 23/04/1985) by Berengo Gardin, GianniFondazione Fiera Milano
The “optical island”
The object of Berengo Gardin’s lens was the SIP–RAI Pavilion, located near the International Trade Centre (CISI).
For the “Fair of the Possible” that year, the two companies joined forces to create an innovative exhibition showcasing the great new potential offered by optical fibre, staging what was the first-ever experiment in the transmission of words, sounds, and pictures.
The installation was built around the SIP stand, at the centre of a star-shaped infrastructure from which optical fibre spread to cover the entire grounds of the fair. Six hundred and forty kilometres of optical cables linked together three hundred transmission stations.
To get an idea of the astounding quantity of data that could be transmitted, just think that a single optical fibre—and each kilometre of cable contained between twenty and two hundred fibres—could carry ten thousand telephone conversations.
As cited by the Corriere della Sera on April 11th, 1985, the national wire service ANSA reported that over thirty videophones - precursors of the new one - had been provided for exhibitors to use, along with sixty-four television sets able to broadcast interactive videotex pages.
Televisione interattiva via fibra ottica alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 Televisione interattiva via fibra ottica alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 (14/04/1985 - 23/04/1985) by Berengo Gardin, GianniFondazione Fiera Milano
Each transmission station broadcast twenty television channels, including the public broadcasting service, major private Italian broadcasters and foreign broadcasters; special channels, such as the Speciale RAI Fiera, produced in partnership with SIP.
Speciale RAI Fiera broadcast non-stop from 10 AM to 5 PM every day, featuring news on the fair, documentaries, and RAI 3 regional programmes, as well as interactive programmes, which viewers could fast-forward, slow down, and pause.
It was a complex project, made possible thanks to a wide network of partners, including CSELT, Italtel, and Sirti Group—all IRI-STET Group companies, as Giovanni Caprara pointed out in the Corriere della Sera on March 19th, 1985.
Televisione interattiva via fibra ottica alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 Televisione interattiva via fibra ottica alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 (14/04/1985 - 23/04/1985) by Berengo Gardin, GianniFondazione Fiera Milano
The future is here now
The "optical island" was the first of its kind in Italy and attracted hordes of crowds at the fair that year. It wasn't the only attraction. In 1985 the Fair Board set up Milanfair Overseas Exhibitions, an operating unit tasked with organizing trade exhibitions outside Italy.
Of the many held that year, one stood out in particular—Expo ’85, hosted in Tsukuba, Japan. A world showcase at which Italy exhibited, thanks to the work of Fiera di Milano.
The two events were not just linked by the organizational efforts of the Fair Board. The opening ceremony in Milan was broadcast live via satellite in Tsukuba on a video screen with a display resolution of 450,000 pixels, installed in the middle of the expo showgrounds.
The Jumbotron, as it was known, towered as high as a twelve-storey building, with a screen measuring around a thousand square metres. Pictures were broadcast thanks to optical fibre links, while sound was delivered by twelve huge speakers reaching a range of one kilometre.
Salone dei servizi alla Fiera di Milano del 1985 Salone dei servizi alla Fiera di Milano del 1985 (19/04/1985 - 23/04/1985) by Berengo Gardin, GianniFondazione Fiera Milano
A newspaper report from the time described the excitement:
“A light wind swells the flags of the eighty-one countries, hoisted in the middle of the showgrounds. Under the hot sun stands the honour guard, in full dress uniform, their sabres glinting as they rise in respect at the passing of the prime minister.
On the other side of the world, on a gigantic screen installed at the heart of EXPO in Tsukuba, Japan, the pictures must have a warm Mediterranean look to them. (…)
When the official photos end comes the moment of tradition, as all the sirens kick in with their piercing sound (…). The sixty-third Milan Fair is now open.”
(Riccardo Gallo, Corriere della Sera, April 15th, 1985)
With the future knocking, Japan geared up to open the door and usher it in to the present.
And Milan was among the first to give its welcome, as observed by Berengo Gardin with his trained photographer’s eye.
Alongside the curious amazement of the crowds, his pictures capture the unique vision of modernity expressed by the fairgrounds compelled as it was to embrace a future in the making, caught between expectation and apprehension.
The perfect closing words to describe the emotional rise and fall of those days were penned by Giuseppe Pontiggia, again for the Corriere della Sera, when he wrote, “Happiness at the fair is stepping into the city of the Future; dismay is having had only a taste of it.”
Sosta pranzo alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 (14/04/1985 - 23/04/1985) by Berengo Gardin, GianniFondazione Fiera Milano
A fair of exceptions: colour, as used by Berengo Gardin
Scratching beneath the surface, the careful observer can grasp the many nuances that convey all the unexpected aspects of the fair, which help to show how exceptional it was and reveal unsuspecting curiosities.
Little has been said, for instance, of the small, but significant collection of colour slides produced by Berengo Gardin for the Milan Fair assignment.
Those who know the photographer and his style well will be fully aware of how he always worked with the infinite possibilities that lay in the folds of black and white.
For Berengo Gardin, the world as he knew it and as he photographed it had always been codified in black and white—from television and cinema to the work of his great masters—leaving no room, or very little room, for colour.
As he himself put it, when asked about the use of colour,
“Colour is distracting. A bright blue sky puts most things right (…). Black and white creates that gap with natural vision that forces you to look closer.”
(Michele Smargiassi, La Repubblica, June 8th, 2013)
Yet, even in this aberrational stylistic choice, in documenting the reality of the fair, the photographer remained true to his habit of seeking out scenes with a human presence, captured in a daily dimension.
His photographs inside and outside the pavilions consistently embody his underlying conception of photography as witness of the world, even if expressed, on an exceptional basis, in colour. That continuum is given by his subjects, the true stars in the photographer’s eye.
Speaking in simple terms of his approach to photography in an interview with RAI for the release of his memoirs, In parole povere. Un’autobiografia con immagini (Contrasto, 2020), Berengo Gardin recalled:
Visitatrice alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 Visitatrice alla Fiera Campionaria di Milano del 1985 (14/04/1985 - 23/04/1985) by Berengo Gardin, GianniFondazione Fiera Milano
“My photographs have two aspects to them".
“There’s the single photo that tells a story, in Cartier-Bresson style, just to give an example, or a series of photos that tell a story, and so with books, made up of fifty or sixty photos, you can say more about a situation, a landscape a city (…)".
"What interested me was humans, from a social point of view"
Thus, despite his great care for composition and the geometry of forms, it was always “the subject that makes the photograph.”
Having immortalized the instants and faces of the people who populated, experienced, and before that, set up the fair, such as workers at work, on breaks, or in relation to each other, is not a merit of the photographer.
On the contrary, “it is the merit of the person photographed, or of people behaving in certain ways. The skill of the photographer lies in snapping at the right moment.”
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