Love is ALL
Mirror of Italy
by Alessandra Cenna
MASI MUSEO DELL’ARTE DELLA SVIZZERA ITALIANA
Lugano
until January 26, 2025
LUIGI GHIRRI VIAGGI
Photographies 1970 -1991
MASI Lugano_Luigi Ghirri.
MASI Lugano_Luigi Ghirri.
MASI Lugano_Luigi Ghirri.
The Masi of Lugano hosts a magnificent retrospective dedicated to the Italian photographer Luigi Ghirri (1943 - 1992) a little over 30 years after his premature death at only 49 years old.
The artist’s thousand travels are represented in 140 color images, mostly vintage prints from the 70s and 80s, from his heirs and the collection of the CSAC of Parma.
This is a rare opportunity to discover the most famous but also the most unusual shots. A surveyor by training, since his first projects Luigi Ghirri has always been fascinated by travel, real or imaginary, but always sentimental.
Travel therefore plays an important role, as a concept and as a source of inspiration, from Sunday excursions in the surroundings of his hometown, Modena, which he defined as «minimal adventures» to trips to more renowned tourist destinations.
Luigi Ghirri studied the theme of travel through maps, atlases, postcards, globes and tourist advertisements.
The exhibition is fluid, the public is invited to freely establish pauses, reflections to interpret the images and, at the end of the visit, they are invited to follow the exhi bition route in reverse, in order to follow what he called the strange entanglements of the gaze.
MASI Lugano_Luigi Ghirri.
MASI Lugano_Luigi Ghirri.
I t is his cardboard images that open the exhibition, Luigi Ghirri has always been fascinated by large advertising panels, colossal photographs. The proportions of these immense models make it possible to transfer the Alpine panorama of the Dolomites to the heart of Reggio Emilia. He liked to transpose sea or mountain landscapes onto the walls of cities. A selection of shots shows holidaymakers playing tennis, but also a parasol, a slide in a silent calm. Under the title «Viaggi in casa» (Travels at home) Luigi Ghirri presents his series “Atlante”, a close-up of the geographical maps extracted from his atlas. T his magnificent and magical object encloses within itself the infinity of his dreams and his travels.Commissioned by the tourist offices or the Italian Touring Club, Luigi Ghirri traveled all over Italy to devote himself to several reports in the 80s
MASI Lugano_Luigi Ghirri.
The book “Capri” belongs to this period and highlights his interest in a panora mic detail of the most famous “the Faraglioni”. These famous rocks were shot either in a very classic way or fragmented into mirrors in a more sequenced work. Self-taught artist, pioneering figure and influential thinker in the world of photogra phy, Luigi Ghirri, behind his apparent simplicity, has profoundly marked the visual culture of our time. And for his country, he was able to restore its dignity by honoring all the little things of the Italian landscapes.
LUIGI GHIRRI VIAGGI
Photographies 1970 -1991 Masi Museo dell’Arte della Svizzera Italiana - Lieu d’Exposition LAC - Lugano - Suisse -
jusqu’au 26 janvier 2025
www.luganolac.ch
MASI Lugano_Luigi Ghirri.