IKS PHOTO-Institut für Kunstdokumentation und Szenografie

No Place like Home

Italian photography since the 1980s

An exhibition by IKS Photo Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle Darmstadt, SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen and the Draiflessen Collection Mettingen, curated by Ralph Goertz.

‘In Germany, three exhibitions and an ambitious project are exploring the contribution of Italian photography to the European panorama, while in our country it seems to be struggling to find an institutional role and venues dedicated to it.’

Chiara Marinello, Il Giornale della Fotografia

Venues

Kunsthalle Darmstadt: 28 September 2025 – 11 January 2026

SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen: 01 February – 26 July 2026

Draiflessen Collection: Spring 2027

Via Aristotele, 1979 © Gabriele Basilico

For the first time in Germany, four institutions are jointly exploring the influences of Italian photography on the development of European photographic history since the 1980s within the exhibition No Place like Home. On display will be up to 340 works by around 40 photographers who, on the one hand, draw on Arte Povera and Neorealism and in the context of the American New Colour movement and German photography - as taught by Otto Steinert at the Folkwang school in Essen and Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Duesseldorf Art Academy - on the other hand.

Among other series the show presents vintage prints and rarely shown original prints from the early 1980s, including works by Guido Guidi (*1941), Gabriele Basilico (1944 - 2013), Luigi Ghirri (1943 - 1992), Olivo Barbieri (*1954) and Marina Ballo Charmet (*1952).

‘Rather than basking in a timeless, beautiful Italy, the collection on show insists on representing an Italy that is contradictory, diverse, and alive to its own complexities. In doing so, “No Place Like Home” doesn’t just challenge a stereotype but reclaims the visual imagination of Italy for those who live within it and records all the beauty and the lows of a country so overlooked by foreigners yet so little known.’

Ilaria Sponda, Der Greif

Marina Ravenna 1986 © Luigi Ghirri

The spectrum of works on display includes numerous portraits, conceptual and serial works, social, political and socially localised photographs and landscape photographs, which occupy a special place in Italian art. In particular, the so-called ‘photography of places’, which established itself in Italy in the early 1980s, focuses on a collective identity with the help of which the authors self-confidently formulated their claim to artistic autonomy.

In the early 1990s, the economic development of advanced capitalism and the first effects of globalisation led photographers such as Marina Ballo Charmet, Paola De Pietri, William Guerrieri, Walter Niedermayr and Paola Di Bello to take an interest in urban spaces, the loss of identity of places and social issues.

At the beginning of the new millennium, various crises created a breeding ground for new photographic approaches and artistic strategies. Social injustices, demands for gender equality and issues of migration created a new cultural framework and brought forth a new generation of photographers: Marcello Galvani, Francesco Neri, Luca Nostri, Allegra Martin and Cesare Fabbri - all students of Guido Guidi. They saw themselves as representatives of a long artistic tradition and turned their attention to urban space in the provinces.

‘We just have to wait for the exhibition in September. Certainly, such a large project cannot be complete, but we hope it will be a reconnaissance and a starting point for a necessary reflection, which perhaps has not been done since Combattimento per un'immagine (1973) or Viaggio in Italia (1984). Will Germany export our photography to the world?’

Chiara Marinello, Il Giornale della Fotografia

Castagnole, 1986 © Guido Guidi

Another group of photographers developed a new narrative method that was formally linked to the reportage photography of the 1970s. In the socially critical works of Michela Palermo, Nicola Lo Calzo, Giulia Iacolutti, Davide Degano, Michele Borzoni and Simone Donati, the artistic affinity with representatives of the Folkwang school such as Joachim Brohm, Wendelin Bottländer and Petra Wittmar is also evident. Andrea Botto, Maurizio Montagna and Alessandro Ruzzier make use of real or constructed moments from which they develop their works - following the examples of postmodernism, but also the ‘objective photography’ of the Duesseldorf Art Academy and its representatives such as Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Candida Höfer, Andreas Gursky and Axel Hütte.

KA-BOOM #17_Rapallo 2009 © Andrea Botto

‘Magnificently staged [...] brilliantly hung.’

Bettina Bergstedt, Echo Darmstadt

In young Italian photography, it is clear that photographers such as Francesca Iovene, Carmen Colombo, Alessandra, Dragoni, Matteo Di Giovanni, Tomaso Clavarino, Giulia Agostini, Federico Clavarino and Iacopo Pasqui no longer focus on public space as a place of collective identity in their pictorial investigations, but instead propagate a freer approach to narrative structures around the themes of individuality, community and diversity. In their often biographical series, they neglect the narrative sequence of images in favour of a series of individual figurative elements that are charged with the symbolic values of their generation. In doing so, they take a critical look at the concept of home and their own origins.

Libera Poesia, 2023 © Alessandra Dragoni

No Place like Home is the first major survey exhibition to present the development of the medium of photography in Italy since the 1980s and shows how Italy, which emerged from the economic boom of the post-war period, has found its own credible photographic representation. In this complexity, Italian photography shows clear parallels to the development of photography in Europe since the 1980s and can confidently place itself in the panorama of photography as an autonomous art form.

In the poetry of everyday life, the participating artists capture social and societal interdependencies, expose and reflect on the imperial past of their home country and critically scrutinise the medium of photography: sometimes traditional, sometimes conceptual, always touching and far away from the clichés of ‘Dolce Vita’ and ‘Bella Italia’.

‘The exhibition presents photography as an encounter with almost 50 years of Italian history beyond tourist attractions and clichés.’

Bettina Bergstedt, Echo Darmstadt

I don't care (about football), 2023 © Giulia Iacolutti

The exhibition No Place like Home is curated by Ralph Goertz, director of IKS Photo Düsseldorf, and will be realised in close collaboration with the exhibiting partner institutions.

The richly illustrated exhibition catalogue is published by Verlag der Buchhandlungen Walther und Franz König, with a joint foreword by Leòn Krempel, Svenja Frank, Corinna Otto, Ralph Goertz and texts by Nicoletta Leonardi and William Guerrieri.

Order the book here!

Participating photographers

Giulia Agostini, Marina Ballo Charmet, Olivo Barbieri, Fabio Barile, Gabriele Basilico, Michele Borzoni, Andrea Botto, Michele Buda, Michele Cera, Federico Clavarino, Tomaso Clavarino, Carmen Colombo, Mario Cresci, Paola De Pietri, Davide Degano, Paola Di Bello, Matteo Di Giovanni, Simone Donati, Alessandra Dragoni, Cesare Fabbri, Marcello Galvani, Luigi Ghirri, William Guerrieri, Guido Guidi, Giulia Iacolutti, Francesca Iovene, Armin Linke, Nicola Lo Calzo, Sara Lorusso, Rachele Maistrello, Allegra Martin, Marco Marzocchi, Sofia Masini, Maurizio Montagna, Francesco Neri, Walter Niedermayr, Luca Nostri, Michela Palermo, Sara Palmieri, Iacopo Pasqui, Piero Percoco and Alessandro Ruzzier.

Installation shots / Kunsthalle Darmstadt:

Sara Palmieri, Giulia Iacolutti, Maurizio Montagna, Rachele Maistrello, Fabio Barile, Alessandro Ruzzier, Andrea Botto, Luigi Ghirri, Marina Ballo Charmet, Olivo Barbieri