At Milan Design Week, Magnum Photographers Capture the “Emotions of the Sun” for Veuve Clicquot

At a pop-up art gallery in the heart of Milan earlier this week, the room was aglow with natural light from a greenhouse-like rooftop, with floors and walls painted in various complementary shades of yellow. Here, Veuve Clicquot debuted “Emotions of the Sun,” a new photographic exhibition presented in conjunction with Salone del Mobile. For the ephemeral exhibition, the French champagne maison partnered with international photo agency Magnum Photos, who proposed eight contemporary photographers and provided them with Veuve Clicquot’s simple brief: capture emotions that the sun inspires in them. Each depiction reflects something quietly familiar, from the complex sensation we all feel with the last days of summer sun to the sense of playfulness or wanderlust the sun fosters.

It’s the first time Veuve Clicquot has orchestrated a photographic exhibition—and their commission has resulted in 40 new works drawn from eight countries, across five continents. “The idea was to bring together a diversity of photographic voices and a diversity of emotions,” says Pauline Vermare, the New York-based independent curator who oversaw the exhibition. “If you’re in the middle of the show you realize that you’ve already passed through a range of emotions—hope, joy, respite. The photographers know what they want to convey. My role as a curator was to select five images per photographer and determine how they interconnect in the greater story.” The talent includes the likes of Olivia Arthur, Lindokuhle Sobekwa, Cristina de Middel, Nanna Heitmann, Steve McCurry, and Alex Webb, but Vermare chose Trent Parke’s images to close the show: Presenting the sun as a clock, it alludes to the cycle of renewal promised by a dramatic sunset.

One of the five images from each of the artists was also printed onto fabric and suspended from the center of the exhibit. “This was to allow viewers to be taken in, and to play with the light above,” Vermare adds. “A show like this must bring the hope and joy and respite that I mentioned and as each image intends. The beauty of photography is that it allows you to realize that.”