Lugano
Luigi Ghirri was born in Scandiano, in the province of Reggio Emilia, in 1943. Considered today one of the most significant and influential figures in contemporary photography, he began his activity in 1970, immediately adopting an approach inspired by conceptual art.
His original and thoughtful visual research soon attracted international attention: in 1975 he was included by Time-Life among the “discoveries” of the Year of Photography and participated in the exhibition Photography as Art in Kassel. In 1982 he was among the protagonists of the exhibition Photographie 1922-1982 at Photokina in Cologne, where he was presented as one of the twenty most representative photographers of the 20th century.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Ghirri intensified his exhibitions and developed a strong commitment to the cultural promotion of photography. He founded with Paola Borgonzoni and Giovanni Chiaramonte the Punto e Virgola publishing house (1978-1980), curating several editorial and photographic projects. Among the most relevant: “Iconicittà” (1980), “Viaggio in Italia” (1984) and “Explorations on the Via Emilia” (1986), true manifestos of the new Italian photography.
In the 1980s he was involved in numerous public and private commissions, offering refined readings of Italian architecture and landscape, and collaborated with important architects, including Aldo Rossi, who invited him in 1985 to participate in the Architecture section of the Venice Biennale. In 1988 he curated the Photography section of the Milan Triennale.
His path of reflection on landscape culminated at the end of the decade with the publication of two fundamental volumes, “Italian Landscape” and “The Profile of Clouds” (both in 1989), which summarize his poetic and analytical look at reality.
Luigi Ghirri died prematurely in Roncocesi, Reggio Emilia, in 1992. His work continues to inspire generations of photographers and scholars because of his unique ability to capture the intimate, symbolic and cultural dimensions of everyday space.
