Luigi Ghirri: It's Beautiful Here, Isn't It...

by Luigi Ghirri (Photographer), Germano Celant (Contributor), William Eggleston (Preface)

Luigi Ghirri was an extraordinary photographer, as well as a writer and curator whose career was so rich and varied that it seems like a lesson in the contemporary history of the medium. Although well known in his native Italy, Ghirri does not yet have the international audience his work merits--perhaps because he died so young. It's Beautiful Here, Isn't It...--the first book published on Ghirri in the U.S.--will establish him as the seminal artist he was. Uncannily prescient, Ghirri shared the sensibility of what became known in the U.S. as the New Color and the New Topographics movements before they had even been named. Like his counterparts in Italian cinema, Ghirri believed that the local and the universal were inseparable and that life's polarities--love and hate, present and past--were equally compelling. Not surprisingly, his interests encompassed all the arts: he worked in Giorgio Morandi's studio and with architect Aldo Rossi, while influencing a generation of photographers, including Olivo Barbieri and Martin Parr. This dynamic new book includes a selection of Ghirri's essays published in English for the first time, as well as a selected chronology.

Genres: Photography, Art

152 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2008

About the author

Luigi Ghirri (Scandiano, Reggio Emilia) è stato uno dei grandi maestri della fotografia italiana. Nella sua opera ha usato la fotografia come mezzo per mettere in discussione la realtà, attraverso immagini che fanno riflettere, sulla differenza tra ciò che vediamo, ciò che rappresentano e il loro significato.

Luigi Ghirri (1943-1992) was an extraordinary photographer as well as a prolific writer and curator. He is considered to be the most important Italian photographer of the 20th century. Ghirri’s work covers a wide range of subjects mostly photographed in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy. His photos are presented in a deadpan manner that is occasionally humorous and often rooted in art history. Ghirri’s landscapes are a contemporary interpretation of Metaphysical paintings in their mysteriousness and dreamlike atmospheres. They explore photographic traditions and highlight a fascination with everyday life.

Luigi Ghirri studied as a surveyor and as a graphic designer. He began taking photographs professionally at the age of 30. Shortly after, his work began attracting international attention. Time-Life magazine’s 1975 annual Photography Year Edition chose him as “Discovery of the Year”. In 1977, Ghirri founded a publishing house, Punto e Virgola, with his wife Paola Borgonzoni Ghirri. The establishment was able to support the growth of Italian photographic culture, publish important artist monographs and educate an audience that had little knowledge of photographic practice as an art form. In 1979 he published the first photobook of his own images, Kodachrome.

During the 1980s Ghirri began to photograph Italian landscapes and was singled out as one of the most significant Italian authors in the history of 20th-century photography. His conceptual photographs, coupled with a remarkable literary output, led him to produce several noteworthy photographic projects. In 1984 Ghirri curated 'Viaggio in Italia' (Italian Voyage) which included the work of Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico and Mimmo Jodice among other leading Italian photographers. The exploratory exhibition offered reflections and ideas about the country and was a milestone in the history of Italian contemporary photography. In 1989, he published 'Il Profilo delle Nuvole' (Cloud Profiles) which included exclusively Ghirri’s captivating images and represents his highest achievement. Ghirri exhibited throughout Italy during his relatively brief life.

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Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prose is only so-so, but the photos are amazing!

[Zioluc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raccolta antologica di fotografie e testi di e su Luigi Ghirri. Le immagini sono splendide, tante e ben riprodotte, le 5 stelle sono per queste anche se mi sarebbe piaciuto che fossero state raggruppate seguendo i progetti dell'artista.

I testi sono brevi, tanti e quindi di interese discontinuo. C'è un'introduzione di Eggleston e uno scritto della moglie di Ghirri. Il brano che mi è piaciuto di più è stato uno dello stesso Ghirri, "l'opera aperta", in cui sintetizza la sua visione della fotografia senza diventare troppo intellettuale come fa in altre occasioni. Interessante anche la cronologia finale.