Palazzo dei Musei
April 26, 2024 - March 2, 2025
opening on Friday, April 26 at 7.30 pm

Zone of Passage proposes a reflection on darkness with the aim of telling the important value that it holds in the collective imagination. The starting point is the numerous works set at night that Luigi Ghirri created during his production. These are places temporarily illuminated, or spaces that live in their discreet semi-darkness and that only temporarily become luminous in a festively provisional way, where an alternative reading of reality is activated. For Ghirri, it is the glimmers, flashes, small intermissions like those of fireflies that express the best ways of illumination because they keep the perception of darkness intact, preserving its shadowy areas. In relation to the history of the photographic process, the relationship between light and darkness is essential. The different applications of artificial light have allowed to extend the possibilities of the medium, not only in terms of the production capacity of the images themselves, but also by expanding their use in dark or poorly lit places such as catacombs and caves. An example can be found in the 1914 volume by Albert Londe titled La photographie à la lumière artificielle, one of the first manuals in the history of photography to illustrate in detail the various possibilities of artificial lighting to be applied to photographic technique. Published at a time of great enthusiasm for the new possibilities offered by technological developments in artificial lighting, the volume actually straddles two worlds. A compendium of the numerous - and often dangerous - techniques of illuminating darkness, the manual actually reveals an alchemical fascination with light that refers to that pre-electric "paganism", to a nature animated by an invisible force capable of evoking the almost lost properties of darkness and night. Starting from the experiments on the medium and visibility at the end of the Sixties, carried out by Franco Guerzoni together with Luigi Ghirri and Franco Vaccari, the exhibition presents the work of important authors who with their works offer "micro-ruptures", generated by sudden illuminations and capable of revealing that hidden relationship between light and darkness in nature. In his famous intervention of 1923, titled The Ritual of the Serpent, Aby Warburg states that "the lightning trapped in the wire - the captured electricity - has produced a civilization that sweeps away paganism" and, in a sense, the sacredness that binds man to nature. This fear actually finds a new horizon of understanding in the works of Mario Airò, Gregory Crewdson, Paola De Pietri, Paola Di Bello, Stefano Graziani, Armin Linke, Amedeo Martegani and Awoiska Van Der Molen. The different projects evoke in different ways that space of possibilities offered by darkness, where glimmers, openings, and illuminations allow for new configurations.

Photo: Luigi Ghirri, Bologna, 1987, Archive of the Heirs of Luigi Ghirri

Exhibition promoted by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia (Civic Museums, Panizzi Library) in collaboration with the Archive of the Heirs of Luigi Ghirri. Made possible thanks to the European Funds of the Emilia-Romagna Region. With the Art Bonus contribution from IREN.

April 26 7.30 pm - 11.00 pm
April 27 10.00 am - 11.00 pm
April 28 10.00 am - 8.00 pm

from April 30 to June 9
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10.00 am - 1.00 pm
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and holidays 10.00 am - 8.00 pm

from June 10 to June 30

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10.00 am - 1.00 pm
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and holidays 10.00 am - 6.00 pm

Closed on Mondays

NIGHT PASSAGES

PHOTO GALLERY

Saturdays May 4, 11, 18, 25, June 1 and 8, 2024, at 10.30 am FREE GUIDED TOURS of the exhibition

The initiative is free of charge and does not require a reservation

0522 456477 Civic Museums - offices, via Palazzolo, 2 (Mon-Fri: 09.00 am - 1.00 pm / Tue, Thu: 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm) 0522 456816 Palazzo dei Musei, via Spallanzani, 1
opening hours

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