The Complete Essays

Mack Books, 2017. Softcover, 239pp., 5.75 x 9 inches.

New

The Complete Essays 1973-1991 is a long-awaited collection of short, allusive texts on the curiosities of photography written by the great Italian artist, Luigi Ghirri. Ghirri's writings spiral outwards from his practice, intuitively exploring the subjects at the core of his images – the themes of identity, time, memory, vision, representation, and sense of place. With a taste for the eclectic, he interweaves references as varied as Prince, Dylan, Hendrix, McLuhan, Mallarmé, Gulliver, Eggleston, Evans, neo-realist film, Cézanne and Pessoa. Together, the essays offer a unique and comprehensive treatise on the history and theory of photography. Above all, they constitute a special form of autobiography for someone whose ironic wit and gentle style has trickled down to so much of contemporary photography.