Puglia. Tra albe e tramonti offers a brilliant account of Luigi Ghirri’s relationship with Puglia—a distinctive region at the heel of Italy, which was pivotal in establishing Ghirri’s career and continued to inspire him throughout it. A first visit in 1982 introduced Ghirri to Puglia’s whitewashed streets, luminescent nights, doorways andarches, potted cacti, funfairs, and beaches, as well as a group of artists, critics, and curators who would become his close friends and collaborators. Over the following decade, Ghirri returned to the area almost every year, photographing, exhibiting, and deepening his understanding of its subtle terrain.
These photographs, almost all of which are little-known and previously unpublished, capture the textures and rhythms of urban life, delighting in visual coincidence and tactile detail. Their sense of quiet discovery—and the colour film on which they are shot—allude warmly to the area’s identity as a popular holiday destination. Ghirri maps the Apulian territory via the traces left by its inhabitants and visitors in images flooded with the distinctive light of Southern Italy—the bright sun and its eloquent shadows, and the otherworldly aura of neon and streetlights after dark. With texts by Adele Ghirri, Gianni Leone, Rosalba Branà, and Arturo Carlo Quintavalle.
Luigi Ghirri (5 January 1943 – 14 February 1992, Italy), spent his life in the Emilia Romagna region, where he produced one of the most open and layered bodies of work in photography’s history. He was published and exhibited extensively both in Italy and internationally and was at the height of his career at the time of his death in 1992. His first book, Kodachrome (1978), an avant-garde manifesto for the medium of photography, was republished by MACK in 2012, and his collection of short texts, The Complete Essays 1973 – 1991, was published by MACK in 2016. In 2019, MACK published the catalogue to a major touring exhibition, The Map and the Territory, and another volume of Ghirri’s work, Colazione sull’Erba.
