Luigi Ghirri and the Photography of Place ─ Interdisciplinary Perspectives

The photographer Luigi Ghirri (1943–1992) was one of the most significant Italian artists of the late twentieth century. This volume – the first scholarly book-length publication on Ghirri to appear in English – introduces his photographic and critical work to a broader audience and positions Ghirri as a key voice within global artistic debates. It breaks new ground by approaching Ghirri’s œuvre from a wide range of interdisciplinary perspectives, in order to take account of the breadth of his interests, the variety of his projects and the far-reaching impact of his work as a practitioner, writer, theorist and curator, both in the field of photography and beyond. Drawing on different approaches from disciplines including art history, theory of photography, literary and cultural studies, architecture, cartography, and place and landscape studies, the essays in the volume show how Ghirri redefined contemporary photography and helped shape the «spatial» or «landscape» turn in Italy and further afield.

Marina Spunta is Associate Professor of Italian at the School of Arts, University of Leicester. She has published various essays on contemporary Italian fiction and photography and is the author of two monographs: Voicing the Word: Writing Orality in Contemporary Italian Fiction (2004) and Claudio Piersanti (2009). She has co-edited three volumes of essays, including Letteratura come fantasticazione. In conversazione con Gianni Celati (2009).

Jacopo Benci is a visual artist who works across media, primarily in photography and video/film. He has exhibited in Italy and internationally. He is Senior Research Fellow in Modern Studies and Contemporary Visual Culture at the British School at Rome. He has published essays on the works of Antonioni and Pasolini.