Die Perle am Gardasee (“The jewel of Lake Garda”)

Lake Garda, Twenties. An unidentified German tourist going on a journey to Lake Garda reports a delicate tale of his trip in a short private video, which has become, nearly a century later, a historical document. The tourist embroiders his film tale with notes in black and white, in the style of silent films of those years. Riva del Garda, “Die Perle am Gardasee”, is described with trifling details.

The exhibition Die Perle am Gardasee. Lake Garda Pictures in the Twenties –whereby the MAG continues its multiyear expositive project dedicated to historical photography of the landscape of Garda - originates from the suggestions evoked by the homonymous video, in order to unravel then along a photography’s path through the main places located on Lake Garda.

In the video Riva - Die Perle am Gardasee (second half of the Twenties, 35mm, 6’) we can get a glimpse of a well-kept, crowded Riva. We can sense the ferment of the reconstruction, evident in the excavation which will lead, a few years later, to the construction of the grand Ponale Hydroelectric Power Plant. Some delicate passages make the viewer laugh – the dangerous headstand of a boy on a parapet wall, a child posturing in front of a brass band in order to be shot. Torbole, described as a “fishermen’s village”, appears as a group of houses overlooking the lake, with boats under construction and washerwomen at work, interrupted by the unidentified author who draws their attention to the camera.

The exposed pictures are instead a series of photocards by G. De Lucia’s firm “A. Pandini” of Brescia; they’re owned by collector Umberto Torboli from Riva del Garda.