Luigi Ghirri Biography
Luigi Ghirri (Scandiano, 5 January 1943 – Reggio Emilia, 14 February 1992) was an Italian photographer. Born in Fellegara di Scandiano, in the province of Reggio Emilia, Ghirri began photographing in 1969, collaborating and comparing himself with conceptual artists. Throughout the seventies he proceeded by composing series evocative of the various themes of vision: the natural and artificial image, the ambiguity of the contemporary landscape, the citation of history, the imagery of consumption. In those years he came into contact with Massimo Mussini and Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, began a fruitful collaboration with the CSAC - which now preserves the largest collection of his vintage prints - to which he periodically donated updates of his work, with which he also collaborated as a member of the scientific committee of the Photography Section, suggesting and indicating historical materials to acquire. In 1979 CSAC dedicated an extensive exhibition to him which anthologised all his previous work and constituted a turning point in his story. He then continues with research oriented towards landscape and architecture (solicited in this by Aldo Rossi), collaborates and becomes friends with writers and musicians (including Gianni Celati, Ermanno Cavazzoni, Antonio Tabucchi, Lucio Dalla) and organizes highly original collective undertakings, involving other photographers active on the same themes of describing the Italian landscape, including Viaggio in Italia (1984) and Explorations on the Via Emilia (1986). The Viaggio in Italia project in particular, conceived by Ghirri and edited not only by himself but also by Gianni Leone and Enzo Velati, is a milestone for Italian photography, constituting an unofficial manifesto of the Italian landscape school born in those years. From 1983 to 1985 he held courses in the history of photography at the Institute of Art History of the University of Parma.
