Luigi Ghirri. Photography Lessons at Palazzo dei Musei

Inspired by the lessons Luigi Ghirri taught at the University of Design in Reggio Emilia from 1989 to 1990, the exhibition explores how the photographic medium can be used for educational, academic, and creative purposes.

Curated by Ilaria Campioli

Lezioni di fotografia (Photography lessons) is inspired by the lessons that Luigi Ghirri gave at the Università del Progetto (Design University) in Reggio Emilia from 1989 to 1990. Taking a design-based approach and seeking to comprehensively redefine the role of those working in the field of images, the course gave Ghirri the chance to tackle topics that had always been pivotal.

The exhibition is also an opportunity not only to present several works that Ghirri was working on during his teaching years, but also to reflect on the links between teaching and artistic practice, the processes of knowledge mediated by images and, in particular, the creative ones.
Rather than following a linear path, in his lessons it felt more like Ghirri was drawing a map and allowing ‘everyone to find their own way”. In Luigi Ghirri’s Photography lessons, the interest in drawing attention to the environment in its complexity is evident, a kind of caring action towards the world starting from its representation. As well as looking back at his own work and the history of images, he led practical exercises covering a number of subjects.

Luca Capuano and Stefano Graziani’s main focus is on these very ‘assignments’. As well as Ghirri’s lessons, the two artists examine the tradition of including training and exercises in the creative and teaching process, as espoused by figures such as John Baldessari, Sol Lewitt, Yoko Ono and Georges Perec. In addition, Capuano and Graziani looked through Luigi Ghirri’s life and work, exploring both his home and his archives, and using photography for the purposes of practice, study and reactivation. The same section reveals the results of a workshop run by the two artists for a group of students from the Higher Institute for Artistic Industries (ISIA) in Urbino, which looked into the topics raised by the exhibition.

The third section takes a look at the role that the medium has performed in schools and academies ever since its earliest days, using an invaluable selection of historic photographs from the collections of the ‘Gaetano Chierici’ artistic high school in Reggio Emilia, the majority of which have never gone on public display. In these settings, photographs are more than just sources of visual information about important works, monuments and architecture. They are tools that have been put to practical use, with visible traces of gridding and reworking, not to mention sketches and notes. This evidence of constant mediation and transcription highlights what Monica Maffioli calls the ‘dual existence’ of photography and its ‘authorial, material, ambiguous and troubling’ characteristics.

Exhibition promoted by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia (Musei Civici, Biblioteca Panizzi) in collaboration with the Luigi Ghirri Foundation and ISIA Urbino. Realized thanks to European Funds from the Emilia-Romagna Region with Art Bonus contribution from IREN.