The jury report accompanying the Pixsea Oeuvre Award which was this year given to the Italian photographer Guido Guidi (Cesena, IT, 1941) declared that he was ‘a genuine black pearl of contemporary photography’ because his work had so far gained little international recognition.

Guido Guidi studied architecture in Venice, but has been an uninterruptedly active photographer since the late 1960s. He is known as a pioneer of the new Italian landscape photography, with a sharp eye for the cultural and historic stratification of modern urbanised landscapes. His sources can be found in architectural history (particularly the work of Carlo Scarpa), in neorealistic Italian film, and in the conceptual art that is strongly present in Italy. His image sequences are made using a plate camera and printed one-to-one. The work appears small, very precise, and somewhat monochrome; however, in his choice of images and editing Guidi succeeds in giving his work an astonishingly strong and poetic power.

The jury report adds: ‘For over 30 years, Guido Guidi has contributed towards an intellectual and visual approach to documentary photography. His work, which refers both to Walker Evans and to the New Topographics photographers, is an acknowledged authority within contemporary Italian photography. It is exhibited, but has received recognition primarily through such publications as Varianti (Art & Edizioni Delle Arte Grafiche Friulane, 1995), In Between Cities (Electa, 2003) and more recently Bunker: Along the Atlantic wall (Electa, Milan 2006), Guido Guidi Vol. I (Electa, Milan 2006) and A new map of Italy (Loosestrife Editions, 2011)’ (nominator Thomas Seelig, director of the Fotomuseum in Winterthur).

In collaboration with the Fondation Henri Cartier Bresson, Paris (FR) and Museo d’Arte della città di Ravenna, Ravenna (IT). 

*image (left)
Veramente
Guido Guidi,
Pesaro, Baia, Flaminia, 2005
courtesy of the artist