SUMMERTIME ART: Massimo Giorgetti is not ready to wave “ciao ciao” to summer just yet.
After putting the sea and the Mediterranean at the core of his brand’s 15th anniversary coed show in June, the MSGM founder and creative director continued to celebrate the Italian Riviera and his own roots with an arty project close to home.
The designer was tapped to curate an exhibition in Riccione, a 20-minute drive from his sunny seaside hometown of Rimini, in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, as part of the 27th edition of the Riccione TTV Festival biannual event dedicated to theater, video and artistic experimentation.
A photograph by Luigi Ghirri showcased at the “Anemoia” exhibition in Riccione, Italy.
Courtesy of MSGM
Opened on Friday and running through Sept. 15, the exhibition is titled “Anemoia,” after the Greek word for nostalgia for a time or place one has never known.
Looking to elicit this spirit in the audience, Giorgetti put together the work of six artists retracing the carefree lifestyle of the Riviera through the years and the hedonism of Riccione’s heyday. The 55 works showcased at Villa Franceschi — an Art Nouveau villa that houses the local Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea gallery — encompass different media, ranging from photographs by Luigi Ghirri, Claude Nori, Massimo Vitali and Fulvia Farassino to images by Yuri Ancarani and words by Italian author Isabella Santacroce.
Photographs by Claudia Nori showcased at the “Anemoia” exhibition in Riccione, Italy.
Courtesy of MSGM
Giorgetti said the artists were selected out “of passion, admiration and friendship,” as each one is linked not only to the show’s theme but also to his personal or professional history, making his curatorship even more authentic.
“This exhibition is a full-circle moment: I arrived in Riccione in 1995, a Saturday in July marked my first time at Cocoricò,” Giorgetti said about the legendary local nightclub opened in the late ‘80s and whose popularity boomed during the following decade. “Now I find myself curating an exhibition with the artists who paid homage to that golden momentum, which I unintentionally imbued into MSGM.”
A 1997 photograph by Massimo Vitali showcased at the “Anemoia” exhibition in Riccione, Italy.
Courtesy of MSGM
Giorgetti has always channeled the vibrant local scene and youthful energy in his collections, balancing these with his love for Milan, his adopted city where he has expressed his penchant for the arts several times over the years.
For one, the designer opened the Ordet experimental cultural hub in 2019, showcasing artists ranging from Iva Lulashi to Benni Bosetto. The latter also appeared in the casting of the MSGM pre-fall 2024 look book to embody a new wave of Milan-based creatives. In the images, Bosetto was joined by Giorgia Garzilli, whose work was showcased at the Miart Fair, which Giorgetti has also sponsored and supported in the past.
Villa Franceschi in Riccione, Italy.
Courtesy of MSGM
