Unless otherwise indicated, images courtesy of Teatro dell’architettura Mendrisio
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The Teatro dell’architettura Mendrisio (TAM) of the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) has opened its autumn exhibition season with two shows promoted by USI’s Academy of Architecture: “Stefano Graziani. Reality Show,” curated by Francesco Zanot, an exploration of contemporary photography; and “Archisatire. A Counter-History of Architecture,” curated by Gabriele Neri in collaboration with the Academy’s Library, an ironic look at the evolving relationship between satire and architecture over the past centuries.
On view until 29 March 2026, the two exhibitions are accompanied by “Due Esercizi,” an installation created by the students of the Atelier Orizzontale Blumer.
The exhibition brings together a selection of photographs—many of them previously unseen—by Bologna-born artist, photographer, and lecturer Stefano Graziani: images that are ambiguous, cryptic, and deliberately free from any fixed genre. Rather than revolving around a single theme, these photographs function as visual fragments, pieces that collectively form a broader reflection on contemporary photographic practice and art.
The show is curated by Francesco Zanot, essayist, curator, and lecturer specializing in photography, who introduces the artist’s work with the following words, clarifying the meaning behind the exhibition’s title:
“Architecture, objects, nature, cities, people and much more populate his photographs without ever claiming a dominant role, appearing instead as elements of a complex, layered plot. […] Graziani rejects the unique, the icon and the symbol, constructing his images as relational systems. […] Dysfunctional by choice, these photographs elude the logic of the useful and the necessary, allowing the viewer’s gaze and thoughts to drift among deviations, details and clues. […]
Everything you see in these photographs is real, even if at times it doesn’t seem so. Graziani reflects on the status of photography today, within the vortex where documentation and simulation converge and collide. His works are at once proof and refutation. This is not an exhibition of reality, but about reality. We are confronted with reality on display. Exposed. Reality show.”
The exhibition offers a reading of the relationship between architecture and satire through a wide range of expressive languages: caricatures, comic strips, illustrations, photographs, posters, cartoons, film clips, publications, and many other materials. Through the diverse perspectives of different artists, themes, and approaches, the collection assembles a genuine “counter-history” of architecture, tracing the evolution of urban transformations and of the architect’s role over the past centuries.
“Often designed to shine within the fleeting life of a newspaper or magazine, and aimed at a broad public, these images are in fact of great value, given that they bring to light questions and issues often neglected by traditional historiography, such as the real impact of a given project on people’s daily lives. […]
The aim of the exhibition is therefore to highlight the complexity of a discipline – and of a profession – historically suspended between the aspiration for ideal forms of spatial organization and the contingencies of reality; between the thaumaturgical and the coercive potential of interventions in cities and surrounding regions; between its artistic and technical-scientific dimensions. And above all, between the promises and the fears inherent in the very concept of Modernity".
Curated by Gabriele Neri, the exhibition unfolds across four sections – The Architect in Caricature, Urban Scandals, The Irrational House, and Caricatures of the Architect – bringing together materials from private collections as well as from the holdings of the Library of the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio.
Unless otherwise indicated, images courtesy of Teatro dell’architettura Mendrisio
