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The Arts Intel Report

Bar Stories on Camera

Café-goers in Paris, 1954.

Jan 17 – Apr 30, 2024
Viale Antonio Gramsci, 161, 20099 Sesto San Giovanni MI

Cafés—breeding grounds for the arts! In the 1920s, the Surrealists traded the windmill nightclubs of Pigalle and Monmartre—Moulin Rouge and Moulin de la Galette—for cafés in Montparnasse: Les Deux Magots, Café de la Rotonde, and Café de Flore. The small tables were a perfect setting for cigarettes, wine, and heated debates on politics, philosophy, and culture. Years later, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and David Chim Seymour met up at Café du Dome, where they discussed the future of photography. This exhibition at Milan’s Campari Gallery celebrates café culture with 90 photographs. Scenes of romance and bohemian behavior from Rome’s St. Peter’s Square to San Francisco’s hippy bars to Capri’s piazzetta await. —Elena Clavarino

Photo: © Inge Morath/Magnum Photos