ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to follow the transformations of the notions of nature and artifice in the debate of the artistic culture of the 1970s, through the work of a great figure of the period, the Emilia Romagna-born photographer Luigi Ghirri. Ghirri started his career in the late 1960s, collaborating with artist friends from Modena in the documentation of installations and works and experimenting with new narrative possibilities in the use of photography. In the 1970s, Ghirri discovered American documentary photography, which was launched in the 1960s by the MoMA in New York, and was showcased in Italy at the Parma Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione (CSAC). The terms used to describe Ghirri's work—archive and theatre—demonstrate its conceptual connections with the museum—the collection and the possibilities of its display—disclosing their common link to the central question of narration. Ghirri's attention to architecture precedes his passion for photography, because it is based on his profession as a building surveyor.
