Lezioni di fotografia (working title)
curated by Ilaria Campioli
promoted by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia (Musei Civici, Biblioteca Panizzi) in partnership with the Luigi Ghirri Estate and ISIA Urbino
24 April 2025 – 1 March 2026

Between 1989 and 1990, Luigi Ghirri held a series of photography lessons at the Università del Progetto in Reggio Emilia. Rather than focusing on the technical aspects of the medium, these lectures became an opportunity for Ghirri to revisit his own work, explore key themes and delve into the broader history of photography, placing it within the wider context of image history. In 2010, Paolo Barbaro and Giulio Bizzarri compiled these lessons into a book published by Quodlibet, which soon became a new and essential entry point into Ghirri’s work, as well as a reference for new generations of artists.
This exhibition seeks to revisit Ghirri’s lessons from a new perspective, involving artists Luca Capuano and Stefano Graziani, alongside a group of students from ISIA Urbino. It offers a space to reflect on the intentions and poetics behind the exercises presented in Lezioni di fotografia and, more broadly, on their practice and significance.
At the same time, the exhibition also examines the role of photography as a medium. Since its invention, photography has been a privileged teaching tool in numerous disciplines, particularly in the arts. In the educational field, where reproduction and transcription are central processes, photography reveals what Monica Maffioli defines as its "double life", highlighting its"authorial, material, ambiguous and unsettling"nature.