“And so let’s go, all together, towards the LAC “: this is how the director Michel Gagnon invited hundreds of people

eagerly waiting in the square Bernardino Luini, to cross the threshold of the LAC and discover the full opening program, between premieres, concerts, performances and creative workshops.

The atmosphere is relaxed and positive, the organization is excellent and the public’s interest is lively. We visit the new cultural spaces, designed by architect Gianola: the hall opens to the square and to the beautiful view of the lake.

The LAC is a dialogue with the territory, the environment, citizens and visitors.

Going up a floor, the outside spaces welcome the public into a fairy world, made by carousels, dancers and cotton candy: even the youngest enjoy their inauguration.

The new theater hall is a symphony of shapes, and everyone is talking about the excellent acoustic of the space dedicated to theater and concerts.

At 10:30 am, the doors open on the exhibitions: “Orizzonte Nord-Sud”, “Solid Light Works” by Anthony McCall, “in Ticino” – hosted in the location of Palazzo Reali, and the -1 spaces, Olgiati Collaction presents Giulio Paolini with “Teatro di MNEMOSINE. PAOLINI d’après WATTEAU”.

The MASI (Museo d’Arte della Svizzera Italiana), a 2500 m2 space hosting the exhibitions and the permanent collection, combines the old Museo Cantonale d’arte and the Museo d’Arte di Lugano.

The area dedicated to art is meant to enhance the works by letting them dialogue with the light and with the external environment : the result is a true spectacle, witnessed by the astonishment at the sight of “L’Homme Qui Marche” by Giacometti, with the lake view as a background.

Lugano, indeed, a crossroads of cultures: Italian, on the one hand, and on the other hand the one of the Alps, of the Germanic part of Switzerland.

The exhibition “Orizzonte Nord-Sud” investigates this double essence of the Ticino area, comparing room by room, various artists with different backgrounds and education but in dialogue with each other: Piranesi and Wolff, the majestic Roman architecture relates to the Alpine landscape, in a Romantic vision. Böcklin and de Chirico, the symbolist landscape full of metaphors opposed to the geometric rigor and illusion space; and still Hodler and Wildt, Segantini and Medardo Rosso, painting and sculpture modeled by the same element: light. An outstanding presence is that of the solo works of Jospeh William Turner, with small Swiss landscapes dating back to his Grand Tour in 1850.

The exhibition continues on the second floor with a focus on futurism and the relationship Depero/Tauber-Arp in the avant-garde theater.

The final stages of the exhibition are dedicated to the lead vocal of Klee, Swiss painter and basic figure of the Staatliches Bauhaus, with his landscapes influenced by Mediterranean views, and the complementarity between Lucio Fontana and Alberto Giacometti: the famous lines that cut the canvas of the first, are nothing but the lines that stand out in the space of the other.

From the traditional art spaces we move to the conceptual and experiential light art by Anthony McCall at floor -2: the exhibition, specifically conceived by the artist for the spaces of the LAC, catapult the audience into a new dimension, made ​​of lights, movements and feelings set in motion by “light sculptures” projected in the darkness. Among the 4 projections, stands out the digital reproduction of his crucial work “Line Describing a Cone”, 1973: a light beam is transformed from a simple dot to a cone, investigating the relationship between cinema, sculpture and performance. The audience has fun, experiments, and become part the work itself. Moreover, a telephone camera is enough to catch the interest of visitors between the beams of light.

Between the floor 1 and -2, there is the Olgiati Collection, at -1. Hosted in a building outside the LAC, but created as an integral part of the cultural center, the collection presents, for the opening, an exhibition dedicated to Giulio Paolini, Teatro di MNEMOSINE (Theatre of Mnemosyne). The solo show consists of six conceptual works, made through ​​nine years and dedicated to the goddess of memory (Mnemosyne, of indeed) which are focused on the space, on the components of the artwork itself and on the analysis of art in our time. The collection exposes other permanent works, including names such as Anish Kapoor, Enrico Castellani, Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri and Alighiero Boetti.

To us, a morning was not enough to fully enjoy the new LAC and the MASI’s exhibitions: the inaugural weekends will continue until 27 September and the shows will be open until January.

What we experienced was a festive and euphoric atmosphere, interest by the citizens of the city of Lugano and by and many visitors from Ticino and from outside, the positive energy of the staff and of all the volunteers flocked to the LAC. We close with the words of the Deputy Mayor Giovanna Masoni, pronounced with solemn emotion:

“Take care of the LAC.”