Luigi Ghirri

Parma 1983, From the series "Paesaggio Italiano" (1980-1992) Dimensions: cm 18.5 x cm 23, opaque without border Luigi Ghirri is born on January 5, 1943 in Scandiano, near Reggio Emilia. Life in the province of Emilia-Romagna, Italy’s economic revival, the postwar climate, and the cultural ferment of the 1960s are all elements that significantly influence his development as an artist. Growing up, Ghirri is sensitive, intelligent, and profoundly curious; he is driven to expand his understanding of the world both through everyday experiences and through his sense of connection to the work of film directors such as Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Cesare Zavattini. His technical studies are accompanied by a passion for reading and music, a fascination with the Italian Renaissance and art history, and an interest in found objects and images; all of these features will have bearing on the path that leads Ghirri to photography as a tool for looking at the world around him. Ghirri moves to Modena, where he encounters and interacts with a group of conceptual artists, and begins to pay close attention to international trends in contemporary art and photography. Soon he develops a strong attraction to the work of particular photographers, such as Eugène Atget, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, and August Sander, and starts to conceive of his own photographic work as a great project of expressive investigation, in which the purpose of each image is gauged primarily in terms of its content. In 1969, the image of the Earth photographed...

Ferrara 1981, From the series Topographie – Iconographie (1978-1982) Dimensions: cm 23.2 x cm 15.7, opaque without border Luigi Ghirri is born on January 5, 1943 in Scandiano, near Reggio Emilia. Life in the province of Emilia-Romagna, Italy’s economic revival, the postwar climate, and the cultural ferment of the 1960s are all elements that significantly influence his development as an artist. Growing up, Ghirri is sensitive, intelligent, and profoundly curious; he is driven to expand his understanding of the world both through everyday experiences and through his sense of connection to the work of film directors such as Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Cesare Zavattini. His technical studies are accompanied by a passion for reading and music, a fascination with the Italian Renaissance and art history, and an interest in found objects and images; all of these features will have bearing on the path that leads Ghirri to photography as a tool for looking at the world around him. Ghirri moves to Modena, where he encounters and interacts with a group of conceptual artists, and begins to pay close attention to international trends in contemporary art and photography. Soon he develops a strong attraction to the work of particular photographers, such as Eugène Atget, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, and August Sander, and starts to conceive of his own photographic work as a great project of expressive investigation, in which the purpose of each image is gauged primarily in terms of its content. In 1969, the image of the Earth photographed...