This Week in Milan, Green Provocateur

The seeds of a revolution of sorts are being sown this week at Green Provocateur during Salone de Mobile, Milan’s international art fair.

An outdoor photo installation has transformed graffiti-marked stairs into a sudden splash of abundant green, leading visitors to Garibaldi Railway Station platform.

Internationally recognized photographer Paul Clemence’s image of bright, sunlit trees behind a glassed urban fence has turned a once-uninspired staircase into a greening experience in Isola, an area now in transition.

Once a forgotten neighborhood, but touted today as an oasis in the city by Cesar Pelli and William McDonough, Isola is becoming an architectural and experimental centerpiece, as Milan prepares to host the 2015 World Expo with a theme of “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.”

Photographer Clemence’s work is well known in architecture and design circles. He recently co-authored a book on “Miami Contemporary Artists,” surveying the contemporary Miami art scene. It followed “Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House” and his first book, “South Beach Architectural Photographs” full of black & white images of Miami’s Art Deco architecture.

He’s known for his photography of classic modernism like Oscar Niemeyer’s Casa das Canoas. He uses available light only in his work, eschewing artificial illumination altogether.

“Our hope is that Green Provocateur is a bridge, just as planned integrated agriculture and architecture, community gardens and edible estates provide a meeting place for bio-diverse wild nature and urbanites, ” said curator Jade Dressler.