When Giacomo Bretzel first spoke to me about a photo project on the Mille Miglia road race, I wasn’t very surprised: I already knew about this photographer’s passion for classic cars and his enthusiasm for tales of the early races. Known as “the most beautiful road race in the world” the Mille Miglia has a predominant place in early classic car history. This event, which has taken place on the same roads and with the same classic racing cars for the last 20 years, is in itself proof of the charm that it still works on classic car lovers and collectors the world over.  Far from the world of live, televised broadcasting and computer animation, the Mille Miglia takes us back to the time when you had to get up and go out to the roadside if you wanted to see some racing. Half of Italy was waiting patiently to get a glimpse of the derring-do of professional racing drivers and amateurs, battling it out at the wheels of the most beautiful machines in the world.  What I couldn’t understand was how Giacomo Bretzel was going to carry out such an undertaking. Motor racing has always been a sport attracting intense media attention: magazines, advertising, books (not to mention other forms of media) and the imagery surrounding the automobile and motor racing has had a long history, heavy with well-established symbolism; hence the risk of falling into the trap of the cliché or the commonplace.  The photographer has avoided all aspects to do with the organization and the “social” side of the event, which, for the most, fall within the press’s domain. In his quest for an original photo of the race, and the cars that have made it famous, he has returned to the origins of its imagery. In his photos, the myth of the Mille Miglia has been transposed. Giacomo Bretzel’s work has developed in a complex way, mixing different aspects of this technical evolution, using many different formats: the 135mm certainly, medium and large format, but also plain negatives and black and white Polaroids. This variety of choice has allowed him to communicate the sensation of speed through many different styles, from open flash to solarization, and a treatment of his Polaroid that he calls “calculated errors”. Micro-movement adds to this, to underline the impression of speed and power. Throughout this series the photographer maintains a surprising unity of style.  This exhibition shows how Giacomo Bretzel is able to bring a new vision to the mythology of the classic car and how through photography one can not only document an event, but also create a legend.  As László Moholy-Nagy predicted in the 1930s, photography is reasserting itself as the new language of the modern era.

Mille Miglia, the image of a myth. Giacomo Bretzel

The exhibition is supported by Maison Chopard

Giacomo Bretzel (Milan, 1964) is an explorer photographer who has worked since the beginning of his career with the most prestigious newspapers and magazines including Le Figaro, Madame, Vanity Fair US, and The Telegraph. Passionate about racing cars and vintage motorcycles of the first hour - in my veins runs mostly gasoline, he says of himself -, is a veteran of the Mille Miglia that narrates through his shots since 2003, as official photographer of the Maison Chopard. He “raced” among other races the Historic Grand Prix of Monte-Carlo, competition on which he shot a film on Super8, the 1000 Miles in Patagonia and the Targa Florio. He exhibited his images at the Chiostri dell'Umanitaria in Milan on the occasion of the Expo 2015, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Angoulême for the Festival L'Emoi Photographique (2014), at the Galleria Spree by Bruno Ajajs (2010), at the Centre Culturelle de Beauchamps, Paris (2009), at the International Automobile Museum in Geneva, at the Motorvillage FCA on the Champs Elysées (2017), at the Macof in Brescia (2019), in the Prince Ranieri Collection in Monaco (2006) at Retro Mobile and since 2005 in the Chopard Lounge at the start of the Mille Miglia as well as in Chopard boutiques around the world. His are the giant images that have been covering the city of Brescia for almost twenty years.

Mille Miglia, the image of a myth. Giacomo Bretzel