As part of the initiative ”Le Voci della Natura: Ecologies and Nature in Italian Arts”, which explores the role of Italian art and science in redefining our perception of nature and ecology, the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago offers a webinar on the work of Luigi Ghirri, the undisputed pioneer of botanical representation through the camera.
Meticulously composed and deliberately impassive, Ghirri’s images of plants have rewritten the history of botanical imagery. Distant from Karl Blossfeldt’s iconic plant portraits and Anser Adam’s sublime American wild landscapes, Ghirri’s visual chronicles explore the tension between nature and culture in the static, distressing landscape of Northern Italy’s suburbs. Ghirri’s work will be narrated, on March 31, by Giovanni Aloi, an art historian, educator, and curator specialized in the representation of nature in art. Aloi teaches modern and contemporary art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at Sotheby’s Institute of Art New York and London.
