Viaggio in Italia by Luigi Ghirri goes on international tour: after Paris, to London and Istanbul

Luigi Ghirri’sViaggio in Italia, the art project for images that in the 1980s redefined and renewed the vision of the Italian landscape, places, suburbs, and the perception of human presence in the territory outside the dominant conventional schemes, turned 40 in 2024, and for the occasion goes on an international tour. After the first stop in Paris at the end of 2024, the 86 shots by the masters of Italian photography will be exhibited in London, at the Italian Cultural Institute, from Feb. 12 to March 28, and then land in Istanbul, at the National Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, from April 25 to May 28.

A significant tribute to the memory and topicality of Viaggio in Italia, born from the collaboration between Luigi Ghirri and twenty photographers: Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico, Gianantonio Battistella, Vincenzo Castella, Andrea Cavazzuti, Giovanni Chiaramonte, Mario Cresci, Vittore Fossati, Carlo Garzia, Guido Guidi, Shelley Hill, Mimmo Jodice, Gianni Leone, Claude Nori, Umberto Sartorello, Mario Tinelli, Ernesto Tuliozi, Fulvio Ventura and Cuchi White.

In London and Istanbul, the exhibition will re-propose in the faithful and philological reconstruction of structure and content curated by Matteo Balduzzi of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, all 86 images contained in the original catalog of Viaggio in Italia published in 1984, edited by Luigi Ghirri, Gianni Leone and Enzo Velati, designed together with his wife Paola Borgonzoni, includes an essay by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle and a writing by Gianni Celati, recently returned to bookstores, in an anastatic re-edition of theoriginal, by Quodlibet, after forty years, thanks to the commitment and support of the Ministry of Culture’s General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity, the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Eredi Ghirri Archive. In the new edition, the volume is introduced by texts by Angelo Piero Cappello, Director General Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture, Davide Rondoni, President of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the note to the edition by curators Matteo Balduzzi, Fabio De Chirico, Gabriella Guerci, Matteo Piccioni and a reflection by Adele Ghirri. Valuable from an international perspective are the English and French translations of the essays by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle and Gianni Celati.

The Viaggio in Italia project is made possible thanks to the commitment and support of the Ministry of Culture’s General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institutes in London and Istanbul, Luigi Ghirri’s Heirs Archive and the valuable sharing of all the photographers and heirs.

The Story of Journey to Italy (1984)

With the intention of renewing the languages of Italian photography and offering anunprecedented interpretation of the landscape, in 1984 Luigi Ghirri gathered around him a heterogeneous group of twenty photographers, who had already been engaged for some time in visual research on landscape, architecture and traces of human presence in the territory outside the conventions of the time.

In addition to Ghirri, in constant dialogue with Arturo Carlo Quintavalle and Gianni Celati, participants included Olivo Barbieri, Gabriele Basilico, Gianantonio Battistella, Vincenzo Castella, Andrea Cavazzuti, Giovanni Chiaramonte, Mario Cresci, Vittore Fossati, Carlo Garzia, Guido Guidi, Shelley Hill, Mimmo Jodice, Gianni Leone, Claude Nori, Umberto Sartorello, Mario Tinelli, Ernesto Tuliozi, Fulvio Ventura and Cuchi White.

The group exhibition, consisting of more than 300 images, debuted on Jan. 15, 1984, at the Pinacoteca Provinciale in Bari, and was later shown again in several Italian cities, including Genoa, Ancona, Rome, Naples and Reggio Emilia, thanks to the efforts of the Associazione Spazio Immagine and the Arci of Bari.

Viaggio in Italia by Luigi Ghirri goes on international tour: after Paris, to London and Istanbul

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