The exhibition “Paesaggi d’aria. Luigi Ghirri e Yona Friedman/Jean-Baptiste Decavèle” is the first act of a research program connected to the “Ghirri Fund”, recently created at Querini Stampalia thanks to the passion and kindness of collector Roberto Lombardi.

The interaction between photographer Luigi Ghirri and Friedman/Decavèle duo occurs in a common context of many art studies after the Second World War: the need is to demolish a perception of works and places structured by means of frames, showcases, pedestals and architectures, and to subvert the distinction between the object and its containers, the building and the environment. According to this interpretation, “Paesaggi d’aria” suggests thinking over the work of the two most original innovators of photography and architecture. The Italian landscape is in the middle of this debate, a field where both authors build their point of view, each one in his own way, going beyond that tourist convention stuck into the established idea of heritage and museum, that photography and architecture can subvert. Hence the idea of comparing Luigi Ghirri’s shots to the aerial and free landscape museum, conceived inside Livio Felluga’s vineyards by the visionary genius of Friedman/ Decavèle duo, through the documentary made by the photojournalist and documentary filmmaker Luigi Vitale, who tells the reason of the “Vigne Museum” birth and its building phases. Imagined as a meeting and observation place, it examines the area and its landscape. Since the structure is deeply-rooted and does not have walls, it provides a cause for meditation on the concept of museum and on its current function for contemporary art and for architecture.

Luigi Ghirri looks for a balance point with his framing, leaving the formal expedients in order to combine the experience and memory of gaze. It is not only about understanding the place and showing its aura, but also about living it and being able to read it when the sun shines and under the light of the night, and about considering it as a point of view from where it is possible to look at the landscape through windows and portals.