Giovanni Chiaromonte

His encounter and his almost fraternal partnership with Luigi Ghirri, another master of photography, was fundamental. Together they founded the publishing cooperative Punto e virgola and the series of the same name for Jaca Book, which in the 1980s became the most important editorial laboratory for photographic research and criticism of the Italian landscape. This culminated into a turning point for the Italian photography of the twentieth century: Journey to Italy. The spiritual research became his poetics’ cornerstone. This was accompanied by his critical and organizational commitment that saw him as the protagonist of the photographic scene, with collaborations, studies, publications and exhibitions that since the eighties have multiplied bringing him to exhibit all over the world.

In the 1990s he was involved in countless personal projects, expanding his work related to the Western world destiny to include American and collective landscapes: he began a journey of fusion between photography and words, together with the poet-associate Umberto Fiori and inaugurated a new Motta series Photography. At the beginning of the 21st century, the marriage between photography and poetry takes over again, in Milan, with some of the greatest contemporary poets, for an exhibition set up at the Triennale. Meanwhile, his personal projects consecrated him as one of the luminaries of the new Italian photography.

For his commitment and collaboration with prestigious national and international magazines, the University of Palermo awarded him the Honoris causa degree in architecture in 2005. The following year, Italo Zannier awarded him with the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Award for photography. Thanks to the Bugno Art Gallery’s support, he could conclude his project on Venice, which began in 1980 and was later published in Come un Enigma- Venezia.

In his career he has directed collections for Jaca Book, Edizioni della Meridiana, Federico Motta publisher, International Publishing Company.

He now teaches at Iulm, at the University of Palermo and at the master of Forma in Milan.

His research has led him to become one of the most influential Italian photographers of the second half of the twentieth century, marking the history of contemporary photography with a recognizable style and a widespread commitment.