Luigi Ghirri - Colazione sull' Erba - 2019
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Description from the seller
Luigi Ghirri: Colazione sull’erba
Luigi Ghirri’s Colazione sull’erba is a quietly extraordinary photobook that brings together one of the defining qualities of the Italian photographer’s work: his ability to transform ordinary landscapes and everyday scenes into poetic reflections on how we see and remember the world.
Originally conceived in the 1970s and published in a new edition by MACK, Colazione sull’erba revisits Ghirri’s fascination with the relationship between reality, representation and imagination. The title, which translates as “Luncheon on the Grass,” immediately evokes Manet’s famous painting, but Ghirri approaches the idea from a distinctly photographic perspective. His images are not concerned with spectacular landscapes; instead, they explore the subtle visual coincidences that appear in everyday life.
Ghirri photographs gardens, parks, façades, signs, sculptures, painted surfaces and fragments of the landscape, often allowing different levels of representation to coexist within the same image. A real landscape can contain a photograph of another landscape; a sculpture can resemble a person; a painted sky can appear alongside the real sky. These visual correspondences create a constant uncertainty between what is real and what is constructed.
This is one of the great pleasures of Ghirri’s photography. His images are deceptively simple, but they invite prolonged contemplation. He was deeply interested in maps, postcards, architecture, painting and the ways in which images shape our perception of the world. In Colazione sull’erba, these concerns become particularly intimate. The landscape is not presented as something monumental, but as a collection of signs, memories and visual fragments.
Ghirri’s restrained use of color is equally important. Soft tones, delicate contrasts and carefully balanced compositions give the photographs a calm, almost meditative quality. Nothing appears accidental, yet the images retain a sense of spontaneity and discovery. Ghirri seems less interested in capturing a decisive moment than in recognising a quiet visual harmony that already exists.
The book also reveals his extraordinary understanding of the photobook as a form of visual sequencing. Individual photographs acquire new meanings through their relationship with the images around them, creating rhythms and echoes that encourage the reader to move slowly through the pages.
Colazione sull’erba is therefore much more than a collection of photographs of landscapes and everyday life. It is a meditation on photography itself: on the distance between reality and its representation, and on the extraordinary ability of images to transform the familiar into something mysterious.
The MACK edition provides an opportunity to rediscover this important body of work by one of Italy’s most influential photographers. Elegant, subtle and deeply poetic, Colazione sull’erba demonstrates why Ghirri remains such a fundamental figure in the history of contemporary photography and the Photobook.
Seller's Story
Dartbooks is a specialized photography bookshop based in Barcelona, dedicated to photobooks, rare and out-of-print editions, and historically significant publications. With a strong focus on Japanese photography, Dartbooks was founded to provide continuity to a field that requires depth, expertise, and careful curation.
The bookshop was established after the closure of Kowasa, a landmark reference for photography books in Spain. Its disappearance left a clear gap for photographers, collectors, and institutions in need of a space with a serious and knowledgeable approach to the photobook. Dartbooks emerged in response to that need, not as a replacement, but as part of the natural evolution of a cultural ecosystem.
Dartbooks operates with a curatorial mindset, shaped by long-term engagement with photography and book collecting. The project functions as a book hunting platform for collectors, professionals, and libraries worldwide, and also provides advisory support to other bookshops seeking to develop coherent and specialized photography collections.
The catalogue includes new publications, rare and out-of-print titles, monographs, retrospectives, self-published works, signed copies, and editions produced directly by photographers through their own imprints. The selection reflects a sustained commitment to photography as a form of visual narration, where images construct meaning beyond text.
Although rooted in the Gràcia neighbourhood of Barcelona, Dartbooks serves an international audience. Its community includes collectors, professionals, and institutions from France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and beyond, both through the physical space and the online platform.
Dartbooks understands the photobook not merely as an object of consumption, but as a cultural artifact that documents artistic practices, historical contexts, and personal visions. The bookshop functions simultaneously as a place of discovery, an archive in constant growth, and a point of connection between photographers, publishers, and readers.
Luigi Ghirri: Colazione sull’erba
Luigi Ghirri’s Colazione sull’erba is a quietly extraordinary photobook that brings together one of the defining qualities of the Italian photographer’s work: his ability to transform ordinary landscapes and everyday scenes into poetic reflections on how we see and remember the world.
Originally conceived in the 1970s and published in a new edition by MACK, Colazione sull’erba revisits Ghirri’s fascination with the relationship between reality, representation and imagination. The title, which translates as “Luncheon on the Grass,” immediately evokes Manet’s famous painting, but Ghirri approaches the idea from a distinctly photographic perspective. His images are not concerned with spectacular landscapes; instead, they explore the subtle visual coincidences that appear in everyday life.
Ghirri photographs gardens, parks, façades, signs, sculptures, painted surfaces and fragments of the landscape, often allowing different levels of representation to coexist within the same image. A real landscape can contain a photograph of another landscape; a sculpture can resemble a person; a painted sky can appear alongside the real sky. These visual correspondences create a constant uncertainty between what is real and what is constructed.
This is one of the great pleasures of Ghirri’s photography. His images are deceptively simple, but they invite prolonged contemplation. He was deeply interested in maps, postcards, architecture, painting and the ways in which images shape our perception of the world. In Colazione sull’erba, these concerns become particularly intimate. The landscape is not presented as something monumental, but as a collection of signs, memories and visual fragments.
Ghirri’s restrained use of color is equally important. Soft tones, delicate contrasts and carefully balanced compositions give the photographs a calm, almost meditative quality. Nothing appears accidental, yet the images retain a sense of spontaneity and discovery. Ghirri seems less interested in capturing a decisive moment than in recognising a quiet visual harmony that already exists.
The book also reveals his extraordinary understanding of the photobook as a form of visual sequencing. Individual photographs acquire new meanings through their relationship with the images around them, creating rhythms and echoes that encourage the reader to move slowly through the pages.
Colazione sull’erba is therefore much more than a collection of photographs of landscapes and everyday life. It is a meditation on photography itself: on the distance between reality and its representation, and on the extraordinary ability of images to transform the familiar into something mysterious.
The MACK edition provides an opportunity to rediscover this important body of work by one of Italy’s most influential photographers. Elegant, subtle and deeply poetic, Colazione sull’erba demonstrates why Ghirri remains such a fundamental figure in the history of contemporary photography and the Photobook.
Seller's Story
Dartbooks is a specialized photography bookshop based in Barcelona, dedicated to photobooks, rare and out-of-print editions, and historically significant publications. With a strong focus on Japanese photography, Dartbooks was founded to provide continuity to a field that requires depth, expertise, and careful curation.
The bookshop was established after the closure of Kowasa, a landmark reference for photography books in Spain. Its disappearance left a clear gap for photographers, collectors, and institutions in need of a space with a serious and knowledgeable approach to the photobook. Dartbooks emerged in response to that need, not as a replacement, but as part of the natural evolution of a cultural ecosystem.
Dartbooks operates with a curatorial mindset, shaped by long-term engagement with photography and book collecting. The project functions as a book hunting platform for collectors, professionals, and libraries worldwide, and also provides advisory support to other bookshops seeking to develop coherent and specialized photography collections.
The catalogue includes new publications, rare and out-of-print titles, monographs, retrospectives, self-published works, signed copies, and editions produced directly by photographers through their own imprints. The selection reflects a sustained commitment to photography as a form of visual narration, where images construct meaning beyond text.
Although rooted in the Gràcia neighbourhood of Barcelona, Dartbooks serves an international audience. Its community includes collectors, professionals, and institutions from France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and beyond, both through the physical space and the online platform.
Dartbooks understands the photobook not merely as an object of consumption, but as a cultural artifact that documents artistic practices, historical contexts, and personal visions. The bookshop functions simultaneously as a place of discovery, an archive in constant growth, and a point of connection between photographers, publishers, and readers.
Details
Number of books
1
Subject
Photography
Book title
Colazione sull' Erba
Author/ Illustrator
Luigi Ghirri
Condition
Very good
Publication year oldest item
2019
Height
27 cm
Edition
1st Edition Thus
Width
20 cm
Language
English, French, German, Italian
Original language
Yes
Publisher
Mack
Binding/ Material
Softback
Number of pages
176
