In 1968, Antonio Boggeri, one of the 20th century's greatest art directors, made an international poster exhibition at the Olivetti company in Milan, Italy. The show has now been reconstructed by his daughter Anna Boggeri and her husband Bruno Monguzzi, and opened last week under the title le spectacle dans la rue ("the show in the streets", a quote from Cassandre) at the Galleria Gottardo in Lugano, Switzerland. Milan is only an hour's train ride from Lugano, and so I decided to see the current "spectacle" after visiting the historic one. I asked Walter Ballmer, a swiss graphic designer who has been living in Milan since 1947, where to go, but he was skeptical that I would still find anything worth looking at. Nevertheless he gave me useful directions, and so did Franco Rogantini, the director of the Galleria Gottardo. Here are some of the posters I found:

Music

Social

Elect women

The beach

Language courses

Nature

Vote communist

Vote yes to artificial fertilization

Life can not be voted on: abstain!

History

A graffiti cleaning company: Mistakes can be fixed

Culture

Typography

Walls

Singers

Life

This page is dedicated to Anna and Bruno Monguzzi for their friendship and hospitality, and for Bruno's remarks on the marvellous complexity of human nature, which is also reflected in these pictures. In the last one, a beautiful woman appeared suddenly in front of my lens, laughed, posed, and disappeared again, all within a few seconds. Only later at home did I discover Elton John's admiring gesture in the poster in the background, reminding me of the photographer in the park in Antonioni's movie "Blow up".