What do we see when we look? What do we see when we look at a photograph? The work of Luigi Ghirri (Scandiano, 1943 – Reggio Emilia, 1992) is marked by the tension between the object and its representation, and there is nothing he loves more than situations where boundaries become permeable. His work has taught us a new way of seeing, bringing meaning to the seemingly obvious.

The images presented in this volume—vintage and project prints—dating primarily from the 1970s and 1980s, form a sort of organic mosaic of the main features of Ghirri’s work: interiors and exteriors, countryside and city, human and mineral presences, urban architecture and places of everyday life, photographs of photographs.

The primary theme of these shots, however, is above all the landscape. Not the landscape as it is normally perceived, but rather the one presumed latent within it, inscribed on its reverse side: a landscape of memory and fairy tales, a landscape of hidden figures and marvels. In this vein, Ghirri always favored familiar places—already seen, but "looked at" for the first time with different eyes—where everything is suspended between past and future and where, as in a rural landscape, the world can be imagined as a vision that still inspires wonder. A thought-landscape.