First exhibition in Italy entirely dedicated to the Polaroid work of the world's most renowned post-World War II Italian photographer, the exhibition features a wide selection of Polaroids taken by Ghirri between 1979 and 1983. At the time, the Polaroid company had provided him with a vast supply of film and cameras, introducing him to instant photography.

The Polaroids, both large and small, reveal a new facet of Ghirri. On the one hand, the photographer who, in the late 1970s, after a decade of rigorous conceptual and technical control over his photographs, embraced the uncertainty offered by instant photography and the ability to immediately see the resulting image. On the other, the photographer who, far from his native Emilia, reconstructed his world of objects and layers of memory elsewhere, arranging selected objects from Italy and brought to Holland in a suitcase in front of his camera.

Luigi Ghirri's research lies between a conceptual use of the medium and a construction of images that evoke immediate empathy. Objects bearing memories, the complex stratification of the Italian landscape, and the people who pass through it inhabit his photographs, conveying a sense of familiarity while simultaneously offering elements that allow us to identify with the world he depicts.

Photo: Luigi Ghirri, Modena (1980), dettaglio. Courtesy Eredi Luigi Ghirri