Photographic Notes. Luigi Ferrigno’s Venice

The exhibition Appunti fotografici. La Venezia di Luigi Ferrigno / Photographic Notes. Luigi Ferrigno’s Venice, curated by Lorenza Bravetta at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice (from 17 December 2023 to 1April 2024), is the first time an organic group of this amateur photographer’s work, which spans the second half of the 1900s to the new millennium, has been presented to the public.

“Over the course of more than fifty years, Luigi Ferrigno has observed and documented Venice, going beyond the picture-postcard stereotypes to reaffirm the city’s uniqueness and myriad contradictions. His is an attentive look, capable of entering the folds of daily life, pondering the passing of time … But his approach is also discreet, revealing unexpected glimpses and points of view that are never trite, and which fully inscribe Ferrigno within the tradition of what has been defined as humanist photography” writes Lorenza Bravetta in the catalogue.

On the occasion of the exhibition, a calendar of activities has been designed for the coming months. Guided tours in Italian language, on Saturdays, twice a month between January and March, included in the entrance fee to the Foundation; talk; an invitation to rediscover the Venice ‘that lives’.

A story made up of snapshots which, like notes taken over the course of a lifetime, form a precious treasure chest from which contemporary Venice can be reread.
For Ferrigno Venice means life: the city of his family, his forty years working in glass factories on the island of Murano, and his lifelong passion for photography. His is a story about the city, the result of personal experience.

The project is promoted by the Fondazione Querini Stampalia with the expert contribution of the ICCD Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione (ICCD, the Ministry of Culture’s Central Institute for Cataloguing and Documentation), in association with the Fondazione di Venezia, Banca Intesa Sanpaolo, Banca Mediolanum, Venice International Foundation and the patronage of Venice City Council.