Exhibition "STEFANO GRAZIANI. Reality Show"

The Teatro dell’architettura Mendrisio (TAM) of the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) presents, from November 14, 2025 to March 29, 2026, two exhibitions promoted by the USI Academy of Architecture: “STEFANO GRAZIANI. Reality Show”, curated by Francesco Zanot, offering a reflection on the status of contemporary photography, between documentation and simulation of reality; and “ARCHISATIRE. A Counter- History of Architecture”, curated by Gabriele Neri in collaboration with the Library of the Academy of Architecture, a journey through caricatures, cartoons, and publications that recount with irony the relationship between satire and architecture over the past centuries. Accompanying the two exhibitions, the ground floor of the TAM will feature the installation “TWO EXERCISES”, created by first-year students of Design studio horizzontale Blumer.

"STEFANO GRAZIANI. Reality Show"
Exhibition promoted by the Academy of Architecture of Università della Svizzera italiana
Curated by Francesco Zanot

Set up on the second floor of the Teatro dell'architettura Mendrisio, the exhibition brings together a selection of works by Stefano Graziani which engage in a dialogue with each other without referring to a single theme. Architecture, objects, nature, cities, people and much more populate his photographs without ever claiming a dominant role but rather appearing as elements of a complex, layered plot.
Graziani defies the genre codes and conventions of art and photography, combining the two: the rigour of architecture photography, understood here as an ideal reference (see the buildings and objects of numerous past and present authors, from Le Corbusier to Wittgenstein, Giancarlo De Carlo to Gio Ponti), unravels in images that sacrifice the concept of framing as a device to isolate the subject, taking advantage instead of its extraordinary capacity to bring many subjects together.

Graziani rejects the unique, the icon and the symbol and constructs his images as relational systems. Although he chooses everything included in the image, the ingredients of each table, he cannot control the relationships triggered among them. Why is there a person pulling aside a curtain to look out the window in the room with Van Gogh’s self-portrait in the Kunstmuseum of Basilea? What are three parrots doing in the offices of Studio Mumbai? How much did the photographer actually find on the scene and how much did he arrange intentionally for the image? While photography is typically considered as a tool offering definitive answers, here it does nothing but raise questions.
Decipherable to varying degrees, these works by Graziani have been brought together primarily because they belong to the same historic moment. They are (col)lateral images of an era. Dysfunctional by choice, these photographs elude the logic of the useful and the necessary, leaving the viewer’s gaze and thoughts to wander among deviations, details and clues.

Graziani works against our expectations, constructing his works as open pictures (shots) that induce dispersion, the proliferation of alternative narratives and escape. Graziani demolishes not only the distinctions between genres but also those between the different uses and functions of photography: experimental, professional, commercial and family photography. He references all these practices in his images, sacrificing the immediacy before which this discipline has bowed throughout its history in favour of a multiplicity that corresponds more closely to the mood of our times. Like hypertexts, his works are open to a variety of interpretations. Everything you see in these photographs is real, even if sometimes it does not seem so. Graziani reflects on the status of photography today, within the vortex that brings documentation and simulation together and causes them to clash. His works are simultaneously proof and refutation. This is not an exhibition of reality, but about reality. We are faced with reality on display. Exposed. Reality show.

Among the recurring subjects in Graziani’s work are archives and museums. The artist is particularly interested in the relationship between environments and the ways of preserving something (works, documents, artifacts…) and the ways they are exhibited. He explores the distance separating the public from the private, the visible from the invisible. On the one hand, these objects are preserved and studied; on the other, they are protected and exhibited. Graziani observes the relationship between these spheres and the processes through which meaning is generated in the transition from one to the other, all while continuing to question whatever he encounters.

Publication
On the occasion of the exhibition, the book “Stefano Graziani. Reality Show” by Francesco Zanot will be published by Mendrisio Academy Press in co-edition with Silvana Editoriale.

Biographies
Stefano Graziani (1971) works at the intersection of photography, art, and architecture. His works have been exhibited in Italy and abroad by cultural institutions such as Fondazione Prada in Milan, the Venice Biennale, and Manifesta. His photographs are included in both public and private collections, including CCA, Montréal; Fondazione Prada, Milan; MAXXI, Rome; ICCD, Rome; and Fondazione Fotografia, Modena.
He teaches at IUAV University of Venice, ISIA Urbino, NABA Milan, and at the USI Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio. He collaborates with several architectural studios, including Baukuh (Milan), Christ & Gantenbein (Basel), Office KGDVS (Brussels), and Onsite (Milan).
Graziani has published numerous monographs, among them: Picture Window Frame (a+mbookstore, 2024); Documents from Gordon Matta-Clark Personal Library (CCA, Montréal, 2020); Palazzo Abatellis Palermo, edited by Cloe Piccoli (Humboldt Books, Milan, 2019); Carnac or les Alignements, the Whale, At Night (a+mbookstore, Milan, 2018); Questioning Pictures, edited by Francesco Zanot (Fondazione Prada, Milan, 2017); Nature Morte, Fictions and Excerpts (Mazzoli, Modena, 2016); Neon Palladio (EPFL, Lausanne, 2016); How Things Meet, with Falma Fshazi (51N4E, Art Paper, Ghent, 2016); Conversazioni notturne (Quodlibet, Macerata, 2014); Under the Volcano and Other Stories (Mazzoli, Modena, 2009); and L’isola (Mazzoli, Modena, 2009).
He also edited Jeff Wall, Gestus, Scritti sulla fotografia e sull’arte (Quodlibet, Macerata, 2013). His work is represented by Galleria Mazzoli in Modena.

Francesco Zanot (1979) is a curator and instructor specializing in photography. Curator of Camera – Centro Italiano di Fotografia, Turin, from 2015 to 2017, he has curated exhibitions and books on artists including Boris Mikhailov (Diary, Walther König, Cologne), Carlo Mollino (L’occhio magico, Silvana Editoriale, Milan), Anouk Kruithof (Be Like Water, Mousse, Milan), Takashi Homma (Widows, Fantombooks, Milan), Erik Kessels (The Many Lives, Aperture, New York) and Luigi Ghirri (Kodachrome, MACK, London). His essays have been published in monographs of numerous artists and, together with Francesco Jodice, he is the author of the essay Irrational: A Visual Directory to a World with No Reason (SPBH, London). Director of the Master’s in Photography and Visual Design of NABA, Milan, he has held conferences and seminars in institutions around the world, including Columbia University in New York, ECAL in Lausanne, UPV in Valencia and IUAV in Venice. An Associate of Fantom, he curated the exhibitions Give Me Yesterday and Stefano Graziani: Questioning Pictures at Fondazione Prada Osservatorio in Milan. He is currently artistic director of the Biennale Foto/Industria, organized by MAST, Bologna.

Open Days and Guided Tours
On the occasion of the exhibitions, the Teatro dell’architettura Mendrisio will regularly host free-admission open days, guided tours, and other special events. More information will be available later on the website www.tam.usi.ch.

Free Open Days

• Sunday 7 December 2025, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
• Sunday 4 January 2026, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
• Sunday 1 February 2026, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
• Sunday 1 March 2026, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Free guided tours (in Italian) of the two exhibitions
In collaboration with students of the Academy of Architecture:

• Saturday 6 December 2025, at 11:00 am
• Saturday 3 January 2026, at 11:00 am
• Saturday 31 January 2026, at 11:00 am
• Saturday 28 February 2026, at 11:00 am

On these dates, the guided tour is free, while entrance to the exhibition is subject to ticket purchase.

Guided tours with the exhibition curators
Dates will be announced soon through the TAM newsletter.

Group guided tours (ITA, ENG, GER, FR) available upon reservation, even outside regular opening hours.
For information and bookings, please write to: [email protected]

Calendar and Opening hours
14 November 2025 – 29 March 2026

Thursday – Friday
2:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Saturday – Sunday
10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Monday – Wednesday
Closed (open for groups and classes by reservation)
Winter closure: 22 December 2025 – 2 January 2026

Contacts
Tel.: +41 58 666 5867
Email: [email protected]