Authorial images - photographic projects at the Salone del Mobile

Ph. Stefan Giftthaler

For the last few years, the Salone has entrusted its pictorial storytelling to some of the most talented contemporary authors. From Delfino Sisto Legnani to Gianluca Vassallo, by way of Stefan Giftthaler

The Salone del Mobile.Milano is a unique event at which business and networking opportunities converge, focused on design and project culture in particular. Testament to the latter at the 2024 edition was the packed palimpsest of Talks, Round Tables and installations with dissemination, training and debate at their heart, outlining new perspectives on the map of contemporaneity.

salonemilano, Salone del Mobile 1976, interior view - Ph. Gabriele Basilico — Salone del Mobile 1976, interior view - Ph. Gabriele Basilico

Over the last few editions, in continuity with the legacy of masters of photography such as Gabriele Basilico, who harnessed his own profound, design-focused vision to tell the story of the most important week in design, the Salone del Mobile has invited the artists and photographers Delfino Sisto Legnani, Stefan Giftthaler and Gianluca Vassallo to turn their lenses on these intense days that provide a full immersion in the world of design.

salonemilano, Ph. Delfino Sisto Legnani — Ph. Delfino Sisto Legnani

“It was a spontaneous process, in which I tried to capture the nuances and one-off moments at the Salone del Mobile," explained Delfino Sisto Legnani, a photographer who, amongst other things, founded the DSL studio in 2014, whose images feature in publications such as Domus, Abitare, Wallpaper, Flash Art, Frieze Magazine, L'Officiel, Kommersant, Icon, Elle Decor, Apartamento and many more. "I let myself be guided by instinct and feelings, my gaze caught by geometries and chromatic details. The result is a series of shots informed by my photographic vision."

“I took a rather open approach, letting the architecture of the place and what happened there (especially through the people who lived there) guide my eye," said Stefan Giftthaler, a photographer born in Trento, raised in the province of Treviso, now Milanese by adoption. His photos have been published in international magazines such as Vogue, AD Magazine, Wallpaper, Monocle, Zeit Magazin, Financial Times, L'Officiel, Apartamento, Les Inrockuptibles, Abitare and Icon. Giftthaler continued: "I liked to observe the effect that people produced within those places, I found the comparative proportions of people and architecture interesting, at times they gave the impression of being those sticky figurines that you see in architects' models.”

salonemilano, comunità continua, Ph. Gianluca Vassallo — Comunità Continua - Ph. Gianluca Vassallo

salonemilano, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ph. Gianluca Vassallo — Hans Ulrich Obrist, Comunità Continua - Ph. Gianluca Vassallo

salonemilano, Marva Griffin, Ph. Gianluca Vassallo — Marva Griffin, Comunità Continua - Ph. Gianluca Vassallo

""Comunità Continua" is an art project in which photography acts on two levels: first as a relationship-building tool, and then as a memory of that relationship. In fact, through the relationship between the photographer and his/her subjects, the Salone itself has come into empathetic contact with individuals belonging to, incidental to or interfacing with the world of design," explained Gianluca Vassallo, director, photographer and artist. "Comunità Continua, in its overall rendering, on a purely photographic level, is - also - the visible rendering of the many molecules that make up the collective consciousness that animates the Salone”.