La mostra propone circa 140 opere di oltre 100 autori, scelte dai 18 fondi fotografici che costituiscono il patrimonio iniziale del museo, offrendo da un lato uno spaccato della storia della fotografia italiana dalle avanguardie a oggi e dall'altro esempi interessanti della ricerca internazionale. Sono individuabili alcuni percorsi: il paesaggio, il ritratto e la fotografia sociale, le ricerche delle avanguardie e le sperimentazioni degli anni Settanta, le produzioni strettamente contemporanee. ________english________ The Museum of Contemporary Photography opens to the public Italy's first public museum dedicated to photography, the Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea (Museum of Contemporary Photography) will be inaugurated Saturday the 3rd of April at Villa Ghirlanda (built in 1660) - Cinisello Balsamo, Milano. The project, initiated in 1996, was promoted by the Province of Milan in conjunction with the Municipality of Cinisello Balsamo, with the support of the Ministry for Art and Culture (General Direction for Contemporary Art and Architecture) and the Region of Lombardia. The institutions' remarkable economical support has been attributed to the retrieval and the functional re-qualification of Villa Ghirlanda's southern wing, 2.500 square metres of surface which have been equipped with sophisticated technological systems for conservation, reproduction and cataloguing of the works. The Museum is a dynamic cultural pole, which has been initiating, since its beginning, collaborations for exhibitions and research with like-minded European institutions, gaining an active role in the field and making of its decentralized location a relevant centre for the entire metropolitan area. The scientific project has been defined by an international committee, co-ordinated by Roberta Valtorta, who established that the years of interest for the Museum are those going from the avant-garde to the contemporaneity, with focus on the post second World War era. The activities of the Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea are articulated in different sections linked and integrated to one another: conservation and cataloguing of the pictures' fund; realisation of exhibitions, events and performances; planning and organisation of meetings and workshops about history of contemporary photography; permanent educational activity addressed to schools; publishing activity; promotion of research in the development of contemporary language through photographers; library and multimedia archive and the distribution of services to institutions, universities and firms. The Museum has at its disposal initial possessions of over one million images, the result of a pluriennal work of collecting conducted by Region, Province and Municipality. The estate comprises significant works of the main Italian and international photographers from World War II until today, who dedicated themselves from social investigation to artistic research. The collection of the Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea at the present time includes eighteen photographic funds - property of the Region of Lombardia, Province of Milano and Municipality of Cinisello Balsamo, Milano. The pictures and the negatives, realised by around 250 authors, are amongst the most precious collections existing today in Italian institutions and constitute an important witness of Italian and foreign photography of the last century. The Museum also owns around 10.000 books donated by Lanfranco Colombo and acquired from the Amilcare Ponchielli Library and previous purchase. Exhibition: Il Museo, le collezioni - The Museum, the collections Curator: Roberta Valtorta