Italian photographer Luigi Ghirri (1943-92) made Cardboard Landscapes (Paesaggi di cartone) during his travels around Europe, coining the term "sentimental geography" to describe his unique artistic approach of examining the ordinary to prove it remarkable. The original handmade album features over 100 chromogenic color prints pasted onto the pages of a blank book, and was gifted by Ghirri to John Szarkowski, then the Director of the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, in the 1970s.

A singular work of art, Cardboard Landscapes is now being published for the first time. The collection is an anomaly within Ghirri's overall oeuvre, as it prioritizes complex composition rather than the sweeping tableaux for which he is best known. In this series of works, he regards the printed image as the subject, framing a kaleidoscope of photographs and advertisements to tell a poetic visual narrative that reflects at once regional, personal and popular culture, revealing a fascinating impulse to investigate his role within his own medium.

Luigi Ghirri (1943-92) was a celebrated Italian artist and photographer known for his color photographs of landscape and architecture. He published his first photography book, Kodachrome, in 1978, and continued to utilize a conceptual framework to interrogate the line between fiction and reality.

Luigi Ghirri
MOMA

Luigi Ghirri: Cardboard Landscapes