There was a time – it was the 1980s – when there was a revolution in the way the Italian landscape was represented. Photographers looked at it with a new eye. Starting with Luigi Ghirri. A revolution that has led to endless transformations, such as those proposed, with irony and studied incongruity by Massimo Baldini in Italia Revisited #1. Campionario per immagini, on display at Fondazione Sabe per l’Arte, Ravenna. Until June 30, 2024.

And on the topic of the impalpable and meaningful landscapes, Reggio Emilia offers a journey into the very zone between twilight and night, with a reflection on Ghirri’s work through the theme of darkness and its role in the collective imagination and photography. These are ” festively tentatively lit” spaces, capable of inviting alternative readings of reality. This vision is put in dialogue with the projects of well-known contemporary authors. Luigi Ghirri. Zone di passaggio. Discrete semioscurità is on at Palazzo dei Musei until March 2, 2025

Landscape can also be a microcosm, such as an artist’s studio. So it was for Luigi Ghirri, who at the end of the 1980s portrayed Giorgio Morandi’s studio, in a synthesis that links the two artists: that is, the process of ‘minimal variation’ in research. Luigi Ghirri. Atelier Morandi is at the Sotterranei di Palazzo Bentivoglio, Bologna. Until June 30, 2024.

Reggio Emilia, which hosted the 19th edition of the Fotografia Europea festival, is the venue for Disintegrata, a project by Silvia Rosi, which is a synthesis of the work of collecting hundreds of occasional photos and family albums of people who came from Africa before 2000. The project culminates in twenty new photographic works (some in motion) and an Italian-ness staged with a touch of humour. At the Maramotti Collection. Until July 28, 2024.

At the Museo Morandi (Bologna), the American photographer Mary Ellen Bartley, proposes her work based on photographs taken by assembling books that belonged to Morandi into meaningful compositions. In keeping with the Museo Morandi’s tradition, the project establishes relationships between the work of Giorgio Morandi and that of contemporary artists, in order to create new ways of looking at the artist’s work. Mary Ellen Bartley: MORANDI’S BOOKS, until July 7, 2024.

A new edition of Bologna Fotografata. Persone, luoghi, fotografi is back: News photos, advertising images, family albums, and portraits mark a journey through images from the late 1800s to the 1990s. At the Galleria Modernissimo, until August 4. At Officina a DumBO, also in the capital city, is S/CAVO, a project by Paolo Quartapelle, which was created to investigate the reality that hides behind appearances. Until June 27, 2024.

In San Giovanni in Persiceto, a few kilometres from Bologna, Portfolio 2024 , now in its 13th edition, presents the works of fifteen authors from the Circolo fotografico “Il Palazzaccio”. Until June 30, 2024.

La nuova forma della luce – Frammenti di rinascita is an art project, created in response to the 2023 flood in Emilia-Romagna. It is created by photojournalist Gabriele Fiolo by transforming destroyed slides into unique works of art: a story of resilience and reinvention. At the Museo Rocca di Dozza until July 28, 2024.

Destination Modena: the photographic itinerary begins with the exhibition dedicated to Franco Fontana. The link between the master and the visual arts is highlighted in Franco Fontana. Modena dentro, which compares his works with those of contemporary Italian artists (including Mimmo Rotella, Christo, Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto and others). A personal passion for Piet Mondrian, Mark Rothko, Alberto Burri, became the unconscious visual references that underpinned his synthetic style. Geometry and colour, the visible and the invisible, time and the moment are the elements with which Franco Fontana breaks down reality and recomposes the image of what already exists beyond the lens. At the Nuova ala Palazzo dei Musei (Ex Ospedale estense) until June 30, 2024.

Marina Caneve. A terra tra gli animali  is on display at FMAV – Palazzo Santa Margherita. The author starts from a study on the Natura 2000 Project, the network of ecological corridors promoted by the European Union to protect biodiversity and to rethink the role of human beings in the world. Until October 6, 2024.

Facce da Biennale at FMAV – Palazzina dei Giardini, scenographic entertainment venue for the Este court, presents 106 black and white images recounting the Biennale d’Arte di Venezia from 1948 to 1986. The photographs, from 6×6 cm film negatives made by the Cameraphoto photo agency in Venice, are part of the “Archivio Arte Fondazione” (Fondazione di Modena). Until September 15, 2024.

About 30 kilometers from Modena, we reach the Castello di Guiglia, where GU.PHO. PhotoFestival Vernacolare Internazionale takes place. A festival that deliberately does not assign themes, but this year the artists’ proposals leads to an investigation of the “fake”, in order to answer the historical and very topical question, “Is photography truth? Is it a document? Is it evidence?” The survey is accompanied by meetings on the theme, between real-life representations and verisimilar stories. June 20-23, 2024

Portogallo 1989 by Marco Pesaresi is on at Villa Torlonia in San Mauro Pascoli (FC). An opportunity to see this travel narrative in one hundred black and white photographs, presented to the public for the first time. Before he explored the great metropolises and his train journeys to the borders of Europe, Pesaresi had explored the Trás-os-Montes area and the Alentejo, poor regions in the heart of Portugal. Until September 29, 2024