Guido Guidi, Veramente, Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Huis Marseille showcases the first ever retrospective of Guido Guidi (b.1941). Spanning a 40 year career, Guidi’s work in photography highlights his early interest in architecture and explores the environment around him in a unique way. After studying architecture in Venice, Guidi’s interests moved towards photography until he devoted himself fully to the medium in the mid-1960s.

His early works were monochromatic, inspired by the conceptual art of the period, but with his later images he shifted his focus towards landscape photography. This exhibition displays his earlier, experimental black-and-white photographs alongside the colour series that have become emblematic of his ouevre. He is renowned for documenting the hidden elements of Italy, most notably life in the margins at the borders of urban areas, the “edgelands” for which a new idiom was invented.

Guidi’s innovative, poetic approach to industrial, urban and natural environments has given rise to a rich visual archive of the Italian landscape. His work also charts the expansion of the European Union and its newest urban areas through three two-week journeys across the area. A number of these photographs are included in this exhibition and show Guidi’s interest in the marginal – the fragmented, minimalist facets of a landscape in continual motion. His relationship with architecture can be felt in much of his photography and the exhibition is a stunning exploration of one of Italy’s most intriguing and magnificent contemporary artists.

Guido Guidi, Veramente, until 7 September, Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Keizersgracht 401, 1016 EK Amsterdam, Netherlands, www.huismarseille.nl.

Credits
1. Polonia, Guido Guidi, Eblag, August 7th 1984. Courtesy of Huis Marseille.