Milan Fashion Week: surfer priests and nuns who score goals. On display are the “mystical” shots by Stefano Guindani

Top models and great stylists, big screen actors and fashion shows. The international red carpets. The world of the photographer Stefano Guindani. Known for decades in the fashion system, award-winning and always involved in the social sector. His eye is always original in reading and portraying the world through his lens. Just like in the case of the shots exhibited in the Milanese exhibition: Mens sana in corpore sano, men and women of faith immortalized in shots that show them intent on sporting activities. Although in cassock. A competitive spirit with a mystical aura and great visual and emotional impact. The exhibition is hosted by Leica Galerie Milan, in Piazza del Duomo: opening in the heart of Milan fashion week on 23 September and the possibility of visiting it until the end of the year remains open until the end of 2022 (leica-camera.com).

The photographs on display leverage the human aspect of the subjects, depicting an extraordinary dedication and a unique predisposition to fun, amalgamated with a disruptive vitality. As in the film Habemus Papam by Nanni Moretti, with polite irony, lightness and a poetic language, the photographer makes us participate in every story he tells: suspended moments, hinted smiles and essential color combinations manage to make us perceive the common person, the friend neighborhood, before the church official. Starting from the suggestions of Mario Giacomelli’s images of the early 1960s, the photographer embarks on an ideological mission aimed at outlining a visual story of the religious today.

Who is really behind the men and women of faith? We are often used to conceiving priests, nuns and friars as subjects almost detached from reality. The role they play appears so cumbersome to be able to totally eclipse the space of the single individual. What is certain is that they operate in a context steeped in rules and norms to be respected, in which everything is serious and upright, ready to condemn any type of personal initiative.

The work Mens sana in corpore sano by Stefano Guindani develops around this social question and was realized thanks to Leica SL2. The exhibition is hosted in the new concept of the Milanese Leica store a few steps from Piazza del Duomo, designed by OHA and Holzrausch and winner of the Red Dot Design Award, one of the most prestigious international design awards. Point of sale and place of study dedicated to photography.

Guindani’s story through images wants to clear the figure, associated with liturgies and moments of silence, of spiritual advisors, freeing them from any religious preconception and transporting them to the universal level thanks to sports. The religious of Guindani play soccer, study golf, dedicate themselves to surfing; they are unconventional and audacious, as in Sorrentino’s interpretation of the Pope in The Young Pope
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The author

Stefano Guindani (Cremona, 1969), photographer, has always had a great passion for the language of reportage. Established as a fashion and celebrity photographer, he deepens his interest in reportage first in China then in Haiti: he publishes the book “Haiti through the eye of Stefano Guindani” (Electa) and with images he creates photographic exhibitions in New York, Florence and Milan. In 2015, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the international organization NPH Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, the volume “Do you know?” (Skira) which tells the harsh reality of some countries in Central and South America. In 2014 he was coach and judge of Scattastorie NX Generation, the first TV talent show dedicated to the world of photography broadcast on Real Time. In 2016 he published Sguardi d’attore which collects the portraits of over 350 actors of Italian cinema. In 2018, in Milan on the occasion of the Salone del Mobile he exhibited his images of him at the La Statale University in the exhibition “My dream home”. In 2019 he was chosen as the only Italian representative member of the international jury of Huawei Next-Image chaired by Steve McCurry. He has been a Leica testimonial since 2016.