Thomas Dane Gallery is delighted to announce representation of the Estate of Luigi Ghirri in Italy and the UK, in collaboration with Matthew Marks Gallery, New York and Los Angeles, and Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich and Madrid.
Luigi Ghirri (b. 1943, Scandiano, Reggio Emilia, d. 1992, Roncocesi, Reggio Emilia) began his work as an artist in the early 1970s in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, where he would spend the rest of his working life, leaving his career as a surveyor at the age of 30 to commit fully to photography.
His images of the surrounding environment — encompassing both landscapes and architecture — are organised into thematic sequences and series, forming what Ghirri himself described as a ‘journey through images.’ This journey begins with Fotografie del Periodo Iniziale (1970–1972), Paesaggi di cartone (1971–1973), Catalogo (1971–1972), and Colazione sull’erba (1972–1974). In 1978, he published Kodachrome, a pivotal book that encapsulates the diverse themes that would go on to define his career. This meticulously sequenced work, published by Punto e Virgola — Ghirri’s own publishing company — offers a comprehensive synthesis of his artistic exploration up to that moment.
Embracing colour photography from the outset of his career, Ghirri worked closely with Arrigo Ghi at his printing lab in Modena, developing the nuanced tonal range that became so distinctive in his work.
Deeply connected with the Conceptual artists of his era, Ghirri’s work in the 1970s consistently engaged with questions of perception and representation, as well as the nature of visual and photographic language. While certain series, such as Atlante (1973) and Infinito (1974), were crafted within conceptual frameworks, others delved into more thematic explorations, including In Scala (1977–1978), Il Paese dei Balocchi (1979), and Italia Ailati (1971–1979).
“I have had a marked interest in certain places that we call architecture, the houses that make up the street where I lived, the streets I walked every day were and still are architectures. The doors, the colours of plaster, the coatings, the vases that decorate the windows, the mosaic tiles of the buildings, tiles which I investigated affectionately. Precisely because they were anonymous and lost, they seemed to wait for someone to confer an identity on them.” (Luigi Ghirri, Fotografare i luoghi, fotografare le architetture, interview with Mario Lupano, in Luigi Ghirri, Niente di antico sotto il sole, Quodlibet: 2021. p. 294.)
In 2011 and 2013 Ghirri was included in the Venice Biennale, and in 2018 the first major museum retrospective of his work outside of Italy, The Map and the Territory, curated by James Lingwood, opened at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany, later travelling to the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain and Jeu de Paume in Paris, France. More recently, Luigi Ghirri: Viaggi. Photographs 1970-1991 opened at MASI Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, Switzerland in 2024. Ghirri was first shown at Thomas Dane Gallery in London in the group exhibition Blind Architecture, curated by Douglas Fogle, in 2015, followed by the solo exhibition Luigi Ghirri: Colazione sull’Erba in 2019.