An exhibition in Paris for the 40th anniversary of Luigi Ghirri's Journey to Italy

The General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture and MUFOCO - Museum of Contemporary Photography in Milan, in synergy with theLuigi Ghirri Heirs Archive, present the exhibition Viaggio in Italia. Curated by Matteo Balduzzi, it will be hosted at theHôtel de Galliffet, home of the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris, and open to the public from November 8, 2024 to January 8, 2025. The exhibition was organized on the occasion of Paris Photo, one of the leading international events in contemporary photography. The exhibition honors the 40th anniversary of the Viaggio in Italia project, conceived by photographer Luigi Ghirri (Scandiano, 1943 - Reggio Emilia, 1992) in 1984 and considered a milestone in contemporary Italian photography. The initiative will present the 86 images from the original catalog, which has been reprinted in an anastatic copy to mark the anniversary.

The opening will take place on Thursday, November 7, 2024 at the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris. Participants will include Antonio Calbi, Director of the IIC Paris; Fabio De Chirico, Director of Service II - Contemporary Art and Photography of DGCC; Davide Rondoni, President of the Museum of Contemporary Photography Foundation; and Matteo Balduzzi, curator of the exhibition. Among those in attendance will be Francesca Caruso, Lombardy Region Councillor for Culture; Giacomo Giovanni Ghilardi, Mayor of Cinisello Balsamo-Milan; and some of the photographers who took part in the original project, such as Olivo Barbieri, Gianantonio Battistella, Mario Cresci, and Claude Nori. Adele Ghirri, Giovanna Calvenzi, Angela and Barbara Jodice will also be present.

At the end of the opening, the documentary Viaggio in Italia. Photographers twenty years later, directed by Maurizio Magri. The film, produced in 2004 by Mufoco and Emmestudio for the project’s 20th anniversary, involves many of the original protagonists. As Gabriele Basilico states in the documentary, they shared an urgency to explore “a normality of things, anti-heroic, anti-mythical, everyday and non-rhetorical.” Among the initiatives related to the 40th anniversary of the photographic project was an anastatic reprint of the original catalog Viaggio in Italia (Il Quadrante, Alessandria 1984), edited by Luigi Ghirri, Gianni Leone and Enzo Velati. The volume, designed by Paola Borgonzoni, Ghirri’s wife, includes an essay by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle and an essay by Gianni Celati, and is considered one of the most important artist’s books in the history of contemporary photography. The reprint, published by Quodlibet, was edited by the Directorate General of Contemporary Creativity and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, with the collaboration of the Luigi Ghirri Heirs Archive. The presentation of the volume will be held on Friday, November 8, at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris.

“In an age in which the image has become a universal language, Viaggio in Italia reminds us of the importance of photography as a tool for narration and analysis of reality, but which is also manifested as an expression of the soul of those who, that landscape, photograph interpret it. The ability of these authors to capture the essence of a country in the midst of transformation has made Luigi Ghirri’s Journey to Italy and the other artists an indispensable testimony of our visual heritage, capable of dialoguing with the present and offering new interpretative keys for the future,” argues Angelo Piero Cappello, Director General Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture.

“Within the extraordinary heritage of the National Museum of Contemporary Photography, more than 2 million images, Journey to Italy is undoubtedly an excellence: time, critics and admiration have honored this work, making it a watershed, recognizing its novelty and intellectual and artistic depth. What made it so? The adherence to a spiritual belonging, the acceptance of that demon or angel that binds the artist to a place, always to be rediscovered, Italy. A belonging expressed always problematically and never hypocritical or blind, but always kindled with a visionary heart. Because Italy may be a state, it may be a nation and a crossroads of ethnicities, but it is certainly what artists see,” says Davide Rondoni, president of the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

“It was a gamble and turned into a revelation: the Journey to Italy by Ghirri and his accomplice photographers made photography the art of discovery, of unveiling, of interpreting that unique heritage in the world that was, and is, the Italian landscape, natural and urban, historical and landscape. To repropose it in Paris, which also excels in photography thanks to its museum institutions and Paris Photo, is a heartfelt and necessary choice. The poetry of their gazes, the disenchantment with transformations, the magic of discoveries, the unexpected that becomes new reality will find its renewed candor and disruptiveness at the Galliffet. So thanks to Mufoco and thanks to our colleagues at DGCC, with whom we are united by the duty of memory of such successful and still vibrant projects,” says Antonio Calbi, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris.

“Viaggio in Italia was born forty years ago from the common desire of a group of friends to restore dignity to places and people that no one would have even dreamed of looking at, and in this seemingly simple idea there is hidden an enormous teaching, with very important ethical implications; this sentence was written by my mother Paola who designed the graphic layout of this book, which has remained unchanged in this new edition. I thank her, all the authors and editors of this volume, for opening to future generations a window through which to look at things and the world in which we live, and its other inhabitants, with care and affection, by listening. An invitation to adopt a view of the outdoors that is kind and saving,” said Adele Ghirri.

An exhibition in Paris for the 40th anniversary of Luigi Ghirri's Journey to Italy

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