Collection

A visual alphabet of industry, work and technology: more than 5,000 works by great masters, contemporary artists and unknown photographers. The MAST collection is a point of reference for the photography of industry and work.

Period
From the 19th century to contemporary photography
Materials
Photographs, albums, videos; a historical holding of films, glass and film negatives, catalogues
Works from the MAST Collection and Image Capital: a display table with historical photographs, portraits of women carrying loads on their heads, close-up yellow cables, prints on stands and a large photograph of a landfill.

From the Coesia plants to contemporary photography

In the early 2000s the Foundation began collecting photographs of industry and work, acquired from auction houses, private owners, galleries, photographers and artists. Its starting point was a holding of films, glass and film negatives, photographs, albums and catalogues produced in the plants of the Coesia group since the early twentieth century.

Today the collection reaches far beyond the promotional and documentary material of companies. Alongside the masters of the lens it holds photo albums with thousands of images, often taken by unknown authors or by company technicians: images no less representative of the world of work. It spans works from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to contemporary photography, including the finalists of the MAST Photography Grant.

Work, in its expressions of commitment, toil, exploitation and dignity, is the thread that holds the collection together.

From the collection

A selection from the exhibition The MAST Collection, 2022.

A woman with two children leaning on her shoulders
Dorothea Lange, Madre migrante (Migrant Mother), 1936
A crowd pressed together during a market collapse in Shanghai
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gli ultimi giorni del Kuomintang (crollo del mercato), 1948–1949
Light bulbs and a lampshade in a high-contrast image
Man Ray, Elettricità. La casa, 1931
A metalworker wearing protective goggles
W. Eugene Smith, Operaio metalmeccanico con occhiali, 1955
The facade of a factory on Via Isonzo in Milan
Gabriele Basilico, Via Isonzo, from the series Milano ritratti di fabbriche, 1978–1980
A yellow structure rebuilt in paper
Thomas Demand, Space Simulator, 2003
Five men posing in a workshop
Gianni Berengo Gardin, Alberto Alessi with Achille Castiglioni, Enzo Mari, Aldo Rossi, Alessandro Mendini, Milan, 1989
Portrait of a foundry worker holding a glowing piece of metal
Brian Griffin, Addetta alla fonderia (Natalie Perry), 2013
A humanoid robot in a bright laboratory
Vincent Fournier, Kobian Robot #1 (Takanishi Laboratory), Waseda University, Tokyo, 2010
A swimmer in an infinity pool above the skyscrapers
Paolo Woods, Gabriele Galimberti, from the series The Heavens. Annual Report, 2013
A mountain valley in unreal colours
Florian Maier-Aichen, Untitled, 2007
Workers at a burning oil well
Sebastião Salgado, Oil well, Burhan, Kuwait

Exhibitions from the collection

2026
The Düsseldorf School
Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Tata Ronkholz from the MAST collection, in the MAST.Foyer, in dialogue with the exhibition Bernd & Hilla Becher. History of a Method.
2022
The MAST Collection. A Visual Alphabet of Industry, Work and Technology
For the first time, more than 500 images from the collection, including photographs, albums and videos, in 53 chapters in alphabetical order: from A for Abandoned to W for Waste, Water, Wealth.
2015
Industria, oggi. Fotografie contemporanee dalla collezione MAST
Contemporary industry in the work of twenty-four artists and photographers, curated by Urs Stahel, curator of the collection.

Publications

MAST exhibitions are accompanied by catalogues in bilingual Italian and English editions, on sale at MAST.Point, the Foundation’s bookshop, and on the publisher’s website.

MAST publications at Corraini
  • The catalogue Jeff Wall. Living, Working, Surviving open at the title page

    2025 · Text by Urs Stahel

    Jeff Wall. Living, Working, Surviving

    88 pages, 28 illustrations. Wall’s lightboxes alongside black-and-white photographs and colour prints.

  • Copies of the book Vera Lutter. Spectacular laid out on a table

    2024 · Edited by Francesco Zanot

    Vera Lutter. Spectacular. Un’esplorazione della luce

    108 pages, 47 black-and-white illustrations. All the works in the exhibition, made with the camera obscura.

  • Edited by Urs Stahel

    MAST Photography Grant on Industry and Work 2025

    192 pages, 180 colour illustrations.

  • 2023 · Edited by Urs Stahel and Andreas Gursky

    Andreas Gursky. Visual Spaces of Today

    108 pages, 41 colour illustrations.

  • 2021 · Edited by Urs Stahel

    Richard Mosse. Displaced

    202 pages, 83 colour illustrations.