Giuliano Ferrari: Grand Tour

When Luigi Ghirri was organizing the exhibition Viaggio in Italia (1984), Giuliano Ferrari was still at the very beginning of his professional career, but photography had been at the centre of his attention for some time already and he had certainly not missed the novel proposals in that collective exhibition. […] The decision to work on the topic of travel was not a casual one, because in the European culture, at least since the Renaissance period, travel in Italy was considered a way of getting to know the main cultural models: antique ruins, great Renaissance paintings and landscapes in general. Travelling was thus a way of getting to know, gaining this knowledge is not merely a question of seeing but requires a mental effort to make a critical observation in order to memorise, it stimulates any doubts we have on the cause and consequences of the things we see and leads us to compare our own experiences with our new knowledge.
Perhaps it is due to the very awareness of these opportunities that Giuliano Ferrari
is now presenting a new in-depth look, through photography, at the same topic, yet with a new title. From the eighteenth century, a journey was referred to in Italy as a “Grand Tour”, thanks to its importance and also because it meant staying away for a long period of time, just like a course of study, usually lasting a year, sometimes even longer.
(preface by Massimo Mussini)