Puglia, Tra albe e tramonti

Puglia – Tra albe e tramonti offers a brilliant account of Luigi Ghirri’s relationship with Puglia, a special region located at the heel of Italy, which played an essential role in Ghirri’s career and continued to inspire him throughout it. A first visit in 1982 introduced Ghirri to the whitewashed streets, the bright nights, the gates and arches, the potted cacti, the funfairs and the beaches of Puglia, as well as a group of artists, critics and curators who would become his close friends and collaborators.

Over the next decade, Ghirri returned to the region almost every year, photographing, exhibiting and deepening his understanding of this subtle terrain. These photographs, which are almost all unpublished, capture the textures and rhythms of urban life, reveling in visual coincidences and tactile details. Their sense of quiet discovery – and the color film on which they are taken – warmly evokes the region’s identity as a popular vacation destination. Ghirri maps the territory of Puglia through the traces left by its inhabitants and visitors in images flooded with the characteristic light of southern Italy – the bright sun and its eloquent shadows, and the strange aura of neon lights and street lamps at nightfall.