Gabriele Basilico
Entropy & Urban Space
1979–2011
Gabriele Basilico (Milan, 1944-2013) was one of those who gave landscape photography and architectural photography a renewal in the 1980s, and he went on to devote an entire career to developing a profound analysis of the urban environment and its transformation.
In physics, entropy is a quantity representing the degree of disorder in a system. It is based on the second law of thermodynamics and refers to the energy existing in a system that cannot be used in a thermodynamic process. It refers to disorder existing within a system, with the assumption, moreover, that from such disorder can come a new system of balance or homogeneity.
The idea of entropy has attracted the attention of many theorists of art, from Rudolf Arnheim to Robert Smithson, given that it speaks of a certain tendency for balance to arise from chaos. The intention of this exhibition is to apply the concept to the study of Basilica’s work and its evolution, from his first formal shots of Milanese factory facades to his acceptance of the complexity of urban systems in modern metropolises.
