Luigi Ghirri, Paris, 1972. Courtesy of Eredi Ghirri

Luigi Ghirri | Thinking Images

MAXXI Museum in Rome presents Thinking Images – the exhibition of Luigi Ghirri’s works, one of Italy’s pioneering contemporary photographers. The exhibition showcases more than 300 photographs, vintage prints, fragments of texts and brochures. Divided into three separate categories – Icons, Landscapes and Architecture – the pictures continuously fit these different subjects back together.

Luigi Ghirri, Venezia, 1987. Courtesy of Eredi Ghirri

Born in 1942, Luigi Ghirri lived for most of his life in northern Italy, worked as a land surveyor, and had just one solo show in New York before his death in 1992. The modestly scaled photographs he created suggest a once-in-a-generation eye and an unusually agile mind. Relatively obscure in the international art world during his lifetime, he has recently been rediscovered by artists and critics.

Luigi Ghirri, Versailles, 1985. Courtesy Fototeca Biblioteca Panizzi, Reggio Emilia ©Eredi Ghirri

Ghirri’s photographs are presented with a deadpan, often ironic wit and always consider the tenuous balance between people and their surroundings. He worked in series, photographing parks, beaches, and urban scenes of his native Italy, producing modestly sized, meticulously made prints. His use of color has been lauded for its capacity to express both prescience and nostalgia in its distinct encapsulation of the first wave of color photography.

Luigi Ghirri, Reggio Emilia, 1973. Courtesy of Eredi Ghirri

Ghirri’s photography language is personal but never too close to people. The artist observed people from the distance, giving them a space; combined artificial landscapes with the real prospects of finding a new identity outside of the stereotype. Even architecture interacts with space and people; is a constant instrument in the narration of Ghirri.

Luigi Ghirri, Argine Agosta Comacchio, 1989. Courtesy of Eredi Ghirri

The thematic configuration is thus intended to shed light on Ghirri’s working practice, underlining not only his specific photographic technique, but also the way in which he looked at, selected, arranged and ordered the photographs, in search of a new critical approach to thinking about the image, to thinking through images.

Luigi Ghirri. Thinking Images
MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome
Through 27 October 2013

info. www.fondazionemaxxi.it