Born in Scandiano (Reggio Emilia) in 1943, Luigi Ghirri started his career in 1970, adopting a photographic approach basically influenced by conceptual art. His inquiry was soon capable to attract attention internationally: in 1975 Time-Life included him among the “Discoveries” of its “Photography Year”, and he participated at the Photography as Art section in Kassel; in 1982, invited to Photokina in Cologne to be part in the “Photographie 1922-1982” exhibition, he was featured among the most significant photographers of the 20th Century. At the end of the 1970s, he started working at many publishing projects under “Punto e Virgola” publishing, which he founded together with Paola Borgonzoni and Giovanni Chiaramonte (1978-1980); then he organized many historically relevant collective exhibitions such as “Iconicittà” (1980), “Viaggio in Italia” (1984) and “Esplorazioni sulla Via Emilia” (1986), to whom all the photographers of the same generation joined. In 1985 Aldo Rossi invited him to work on the architecture section to the Venice Biennale and in 1988 he curated the photography exhibition included in the Milan Triennale. His long-life reflection on the landscape issue carried out at the end of the 1980s the publication of “Paesaggio Italiano” and “II profilo delle nuvole”.
His photographic inquiry has been the subject of many books and his works have been collected by major institutions, including the Musée de la Photographie Réattu (Arles), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Biblioteca Panizzi (Reggio Emilia), Palazzo Braschi – Archivio Fotografico Comunale (Rome), and many others.
