08.09.2024 – 26.01.2025

Curated by
James Lingwood

Coordination and development of the project
Ludovica Introini

Luigi Ghirri took up photography seriously in 1970, at the age of 27. For the previous decade, he had worked as a surveyor in the province of Reggio Emilia in Italy. Over the next two decades, until his untimely death, he created a body of work without parallel in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s: a deeply thoughtful, sometimes playful, reflection on the medium of photography, the world of images, and the important role they played in the shaping of modern lifestyles and identities.

Ghirri took his photographs on trips across Italy and occasionally to Switzerland, France and Holland. From the outset, he opted to take photographs in colour, using widely available Kodachrome film, because “the real world is in colour, and because colour film has been invented”. Like the countless millions of people who went on holiday with a camera, Ghirri took his rolls of film to a regular processing lab, returning a few days later to collect the colour slides and select some for printing. 

Alongside his early decision to work solely in colour, Ghirri also shaped a distinctive way of thinking about his photography in groups and series. Some of these groups (which he also called ‘works’) were open-ended, others more tightly organised around a theme or a place. Throughout his career, he was committed to the idea of photography as a ‘journey through images’, sequencing them in a book or a gallery to have a cumulative effect on the viewer. 

Ghirri wrote that his work was “a great adventure into the world of thinking and looking, […] a never-ending journey through great and small, through the realm of illusions and appearances, a labyrinthine place of multitudes and simulations”. This adventure unfolded at a time when travel was becoming widespread in much of Europe, and the camera had become an indispensable tool of tourism.

“When I travel, I take two kinds of photographs”, he noted, “the typical ones that everyone takes, and which, in the end, I’m hardly interested in; and then the others, the ones I really care about, and the only ones that I really consider ‘my own’”.

Ghirri is not then a travel photographer in any conventional sense, but an artist who looked closely and thought deeply about the role of images and made a distinctive body of work about the idea, the image and the experience of travel in the Europe of his time.

In the early 1970s, Ghirri would often go on short trips on the weekend from his home in Modena, exploring the changing urban environment, and sometimes further afield to the towns and cities of Emilia Romagna, northern Italy and Switzerland.  

He was drawn to ‘found’ images in the everyday environment; posters, billboards, photos and postcards, featuring attractive people, places and experiences. “Reality is being transformed into a colossal photograph, and the photomontage already exists: it’s called the real world”, he wrote.  

In 1973 he brought many of these photographs together in an open-ended series to which he gave the title Paesaggi di cartone (which was subsequently extended into a broader project called Kodachrome). Picturing the printed image embedded in the urban landscape, he wanted to stimulate a reflection on “the gap between what we are and the image of what we’re supposed to be”. 

In addition to this interest in the multiplications and simulations of the image world, he was drawn to objects and images such as maps, mementoes, globes and stars that were emblematic of travel. 

From the early 1970s, Ghirri went on short trips to resorts not far from his home, such as Rimini or Marina di Ravenna on the Adriatic coast.  He also made weekend excursions to the lakes and mountains of the Dolomites and the Swiss Alps, and to places on the ‘tourist map’ including Paris, Versailles, Venice, Amsterdam, Rome, and later Naples and Capri.  

All the time he was looking at, and thinking about, how the ubiquity of photography and of the photographic image in everyday life was having a transformative effect on human experience, and how it conditioned and framed the way people saw the places they visited.  

In a series from the 1970s, Diaframma 11, 1/125, luce naturale, some of which are displayed in this section, Ghirri included photographs of people on holiday or at leisure: playing on the beach, walking in the mountains, relaxing in cafes, looking at maps in preparation for their outing and posing for photographs when they have reached their destination. Often people are viewed from behind, or from a distance.

Many of the photographs in Vedute were also taken in places of leisure and recreation, especially the seaside, but in this series the figure is largely absent. His training as a surveyor informed the precise way he framed each photograph, excluding anything extraneous. The subject or the view is pictured straight on, with clear lines and without drama or incident. 

Ghirri took most of his photographs on his travels. There are two notable exceptions, works titled Atlante and Identikit which he conceived and made at home.

Ghirri was drawn to maps and their capacity to induce reverie. In 1973 he used a macro lens to zoom in on individual pages of his atlas, taking details of deserts, oceans, mountain ranges and archipelagos so close-up as to unmoor them from conventional cartography and release them into the realm of the imagination.

In making Atlante, Ghirri wrote of his intention “to carry out a journey in a place which effaces the journey itself – because, within the atlas, all possible journeys are already described, all itineraries already traced […]. The only journey now possible seems to be the one found inside signs and images – in a destruction of direct experience […]. And so, the journey lies within the image, within the book”.

In 1976 he photographed the books, records, maps, postcards and souvenirs he kept at home to make a work titled Identikit. The title refers to a constructed image of a face, assembled from different accounts. “In this self-portrait”, Ghirri later wrote, “I allowed for objects (books, records, etc.) to testify to my interests, my knowledge and my imagination, the time I spend reading, listening to music and planning journeys”.

A theme park in Rimini called Italia in Miniatura was the subject for a work titled In scala. Ghirri made an extensive series of photographs in the park in 1977–1978, and returned again in 1985.

Like every visitor, Ghirri revelled in the make-believe environment of Italia in Miniatura where a visitor could be taller than a monument or a mountain, and where history and geography were collapsed to the extent that its scaled-down models of the Dolomites and Mont Blanc, the Pirelli Tower in Milan (completed in 1958), the Autostrada del Sole (which had opened in 1964), St Peter’s Basilica in Rome (completed four centuries earlier) and the medieval Piazza del Campo in Siena could be taken in on a single tour.   

Ghirri described the theme park as “a three-dimensional atlas” which had many similarities to photography. Photographs of historic sites, landscapes and people also involve a similar reduction in scale, and when gathered together in albums, books and exhibitions, they compress time and space in a similar way.  

Through the 1980s, Ghirri travelled to almost every part of Italy, from Val d’Aosta and Trieste in the north to Sicily in the south. He photographed in museums in Naples and around the island of Capri at the invitation of the provincial tourist board. The Italian Touring Club commissioned him to take photographs for a guide to Emilia Romagna, and the French Ministry of Culture asked him to photograph at Versailles. At the suggestion of his friend, the photographer Gianni Leone, he travelled through Puglia, visiting small towns and villages on the coast as well as venturing inland.

From this ever-growing archive of images, Ghirri created a number of projects that charted the changing contours of his native country. He was a key figure in several group exhibitions on the theme of the Italian landscape, including Viaggio in Italia in 1984, which featured the work of 20 photographers, including his own.

His move to a medium format camera in 1980 brought greater depth and clarity, and more vibrant colours, to his photographs, but he continued to frame his views in the same quiet and measured way, without incident or effect. Photography was, for Ghirri, “a language for seeing and not for transforming, hiding, or modifying reality”.

Towards the end of the 1980s, he shaped three more ‘journeys through images’, Paesaggio italiano and Il profilo delle nuvole. Immagini di un paesaggio italiano in 1989, and in 1991, the book project Viaggio dentro un antico labirinto that remained unpublished. In his introduction to Paesaggio italiano, Ghirri emphasised how his journeys through images lacked “a precise cartography, without compass points, more about a perception of a place than its cataloguing or description. Like some sentimental geography in which the itineraries are not marked and precise, but obey the strange confusions of seeing”.

1943
Born in Scandiano, near Reggio Emilia, in the province of Emilia-Romagna.

1962
Qualifies as a surveyor.

1968–1970
Makes trips to Bern, Luzern, Paris, Amsterdam, and Brittany.

1969–1970
Meets the conceptual artists Franco Guerzoni, Carlo Cremaschi, Giuliano della Casa and Claudio Parmiggiani in Modena, with whom he began an intense and fruitful collaboration both on an artistic and editorial level.

1970
Takes photographs for his first series, Fotografie del periodo iniziale and Paesaggi di cartone. His daughter Ilaria is born.

1972
‘Luigi Ghirri: Fotografie 1970–1971’, his first one-person exhibition, is presented by the Sette Arti Club at the Canalgrande Hotel in Modena, accompanied by a small catalogue with an essay by the artist Franco Vaccari, with whom he delves into fundamental ideas about the role of photography in contemporary art. Begins the series Colazione sull’erba and Catalogo. The latter, inspired by the immediate surroundings in and around Modena, represents the first example of the research that would engage him throughout the 1970s.

1973
Decides to stop working as a surveyor, realises the projects Km. 0,250 – the photographic reduction (at a 1:10 scale) of the outer wall of the Modena racetrack, covered with advertising posters – and Atlante, an imaginary voyage within the walls of his own home.

1974
Takes 365 images of the sky every day through the year for ‘∞’ Infinito. The photographs, mounted at the end of the year in a dense, non-chronological sequence, offer infinite possibilities for recomposition. Meets Paola Borgonzoni, his companion in life and work.

1975
Colazione sull’erba is presented in a one-person exhibition at the Galleria civica di Modena. Atlante is presented at Galleria Documenta in Turin. His work is included in the exhibition ‘Art as Photography – Photography as Art’ in Kassel, Germany. He is hailed by Time-Life as the ‘discovery’ of the year and publishes an extensive portfolio in the prestigious Photography Year volume.

1976
A long and eventful period begins, involving both the study and realisation of new works, as well as the development of the exhibition activity. Begins the series Vedute and Italia ailati, and has one-person exhibitions in Graz, Milan, and Geneva. ‘Cancellature’, an important exhibition at the Galleria Rondanini in Rome, includes over 200 photographs. With Paola Borgonzoni, moves into an apartment in the historic centre of Modena where he begins the series Identikit – an intimate diary of those days and that place, photographing his personal objects, records, and books in his library in natural light.

1977
Together with Paola Borgonzoni and Giovanni Chiaramonte, sets up the publishing house Punto e Virgola, encouraged by his photographer friend Claude Nori, founder of the Contrejour gallery and publishing house in Paris, with the idea of developing a significant editorial project focused on Italian photographic culture. Begins the series Still Life, Il Paese dei balocchi, and In scala, interpreting both the fiction of the amusement park or the ‘wax museum’, and the wonder generated in Rimini theme park Italia in Miniatura.

1978
Punto e Virgola publishes Ghirri’s first book, Kodachrome, co-published in France by Contrejour, which presents an accompanying exhibition in Paris. Ghirri writes his first critical text in the preface. His work is included in ‘L’immagine provocata’ at the 1978 Venice Biennale.

1979
The ambitious project ‘Vera Fotografia,’ is presented by the University of Parma at the Palazzo della Pilotta in Parma, organized by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle and Massimo Mussini, featuring all the works created up to that date. The accompanying catalogue includes a preface by Quintavalle, and texts by Ghirri and Mussini for each of the fourteen different sections of the exhibition: a pivotal moment for his research activities. Curates with Claude Nori the exhibition ‘La fotografia francese. Dalle origini ai giorni nostri’ at the Galleria Rondanini, Rome, and the Galleria civica, Modena.

1980
Completes the series Still Life and Geografia Immaginaria and begins an extensive new project, Topographie-Iconographie. The first period of his research, the more ‘conceptual’ one, is concluded, and this work promises to be a link with a new expressive season, where he focuses on the idea of photography as ‘language’, coming to interpret the symbolic value of places. Still Life and Topographie-Iconographie are exhibited at Light Gallery in New York. ‘Vera Fotografia’ is presented at the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara. Curates the exhibition ‘Robert Doisneau. Tre secondi di eternità’ at the Galleria civica in Modena.

1981
He meets and frequents architects, urban planners and philosophers who are convinced of the need to create a new iconography of the Italian landscape, with an increasing focus on the spaces of contemporary habitat, characterised by a complex combination of tradition and modernity. Invited by architect Vittorio Savi to participate in the group exhibition ‘Paesaggio: Immagine e realtà’ at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Bologna, Ghirri makes photographs of the ‘post-urban’ landscape of the Po Valley which become part of the extended series Paesaggio italiano. The impetus provided by the first public commissions also offers the opportunity to develop new research. He was commissioned to photograph Naples on behalf of the provincial tourism agency, a promotional campaign aimed at renewing the vision of the area.

1982
Completes Topographie-Iconographie and presents one-person exhibitions of the series in Milan and in Paris. His photographs are included in the large exhibition ‘Photographie, 1922–1982’ at Photokina in Cologne, where he is introduced as one of the most significant photographers of the 20th century. He travels again to the south of Italy to interpret the landscape based on a commission from the Region of Apulia. Works in Puglia and presents the exhibition ‘Tra albe e tramonti’ at Galleria Spazio Immagine in Bari.

1983
His photographs of Capri made in 1980 and 1981 are published in Cesare de Seta’s Capri. Organises the group exhibition ‘Penisola, una linea della fotografia italiana a colori’ for the Forum Stadtpark in Graz. A monograph on his work is published by Fabbri in their Grandi Fotografi series.

1984
Teaches a course in the history and technique of photography at the University of Parma. Together with Gianni Leone and Enzo Velati, organises ‘Viaggio in Italia’, a large group exhibition of photographs of the Italian landscape at the Pinacoteca Provinciale in Bari and later in Reggio Emilia and Genoa. The project is considered a milestone in the history of contemporary Italian photography, and the ideas guiding it can be seen as a sort of ‘manifesto’ of the ‘Italian landscape school’, a research trend that later gained international recognition.

1985
At the invitation of the French Ministry of Culture, he photographs the palace and gardens of Versailles. Aldo Rossi commissions him to photograph the architecture of the Veneto region. His work is selected by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle for the photography section of ‘The European Iceberg: Creativity in Germany and Italy Today’ at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. In Graz, he meets Robert Frank and William Eggleston at the Symposion über Fotografie VII on the topic Europe – America and mutual influences.

1986
Organises the photographic research for the exhibition ‘Esplorazioni sulla via Emilia: vedute nel paesaggio 1983–1986’, curated by Giulio Bizzarri and Eleonora Bronzoni, that opens in Bologna before touring to Reggio Emilia and Ferrara. Travels to the United States for the first time, visiting Boston and New York City.

1987
Participates in the group exhibition ‘Le città immaginate. Un viaggio in Italia. Nove progetti per nove città’, curated by Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani and Vittorio Savi at the Milan Triennale.  His photographs are published in a monograph on Aldo Rossi, whose work he feels a deep connection to. After this initial experience, his expressive research is increasingly embraced by the architectural community with numerous magazines and monographs publishing his work.

1988
Curates the photography section of the Milan Triennale’s international survey ‘Le città del mondo e il futuro delle metropoli. Oltre la città, la metropoli’. Curates an exhibition of Paul Strand’s photographs, ‘Strand, Luzzara ’54. Inediti’, and ‘Giardini in Europa’, a group exhibition of photographs of gardens including his own work.

1989
Conceives the project ‘Paesaggio italiano’, a one-person exhibition presented in Reggio Emilia and Mantua before travelling to various Italian cultural institute venues in South America. Develops a new course of study on photography and teaches at the Università del Progetto in Reggio Emilia.

1990
Makes the exhibition and publication Il profilo delle nuvole. Immagini di un paesaggio italiano in which he follows an itinerary through the landscape of the Po Valley in collaboration with the writer Gianni Celati. Conceived as an artist's book, it is a narrative without protagonists about the landscape of the Po Valley between Veneto, Emilia and Lombardy. While retracing the photographed locations, it does not adhere to the topographical layout but follows an itinerary deeply rooted in associative memory. Photographs the studios of Giorgio Morandi and Aldo Rossi. Moves with Paola Borgonzoni to Roncocesi, a small town outside Reggio Emilia. Their daughter Adele is born.

1991
Selects works by contemporary photographers, including his own photographs of New York and Boston, for the book Atlante metropolitano. Publishes Viaggio dentro un antico labirinto, an interpretation of the Italian landscape through the history of art and literature. It is his latest book. Begins work on a project for a book on Morandi’s studio.

1992
Luigi Ghirri passes away suddenly on 14 February.

The house-studio in Roncocesi preserves the memory of Luigi Ghirri through the numerous photo prints and his rich library of essays and photography, and it is the location of the Archivio Eredi di Luigi Ghirri, directed by Adele Ghirri.