Luca Campigotto

This luscious volume presents 70 color photographs of America imbued with both clarity and nostalgia. Italian photographer Luca Campigotto (born 1962) takes us from the canyons, deserts and coal-mining ghost towns of the American West to Idaho’s large auto cemeteries, to the Bronx and other industrial fringes of New York City, to a town in Montana whose brick architecture is reminiscent of Edward Hopper’s paintings. The solitude of the wild frontier and the distance of the urban periphery alternate between dazzling daytime lights and mysterious nocturnes. Each photo is accompanied by short poetic notes—a journey of personal memories which echo literary and cinematographic works—serving as an evocation of some American topoi, above all, the timeless myth of “on the road” traveling. The afterword by Mauro Pala, a professor of comparative literature, explores the ancient relationship that binds American literature to great landscape photography.

Luca Campigotto’s (born 1962) journey through China begins with a search for a mythical past and arrives at the chaotic present of the megacity phenomenon. The photographs collected in Iconic China present an image of the soul of a country in which extraordinary futuristic skylines blend with structures and traditions that stretch back thousands of years: the silences and the remoteness of the Great Wall, the archaeological miracle of the terracotta army, the ancient quietude of the rivers in the south, the dazzling whirlwind of unstoppable urbanization. In Campigotto’s large-format images, the contemplative look of 19th-century photography comes to terms with the contemporary world and the colors of the urban night. The precision of his compositions—always imbued with references to painting and cinema—and his skillful use of light, bring order to the vastness and complexity of the scene.