A trip to Guido Guidi's home and studio a few years ago.
February 2nd, 2025
February 2nd, 2025
We leave Milan in the morning for Emilia-Romagna to meet Guido Guidi, the master photographer-topographer-historian of our contemporary landscapes.
The precision of a laser, the meticulousness and patience of the craftsman in reading our non-cities, our non-campaigns, and the obsession with the time of the shot, so that a light, a geometry, a lived absence can emerge.
Where does this humble and ironic magician live?
I don't know the place where Guido lives with his wife, and neither does Emilia-Romagna.
We have precise directions, we get off the motorway at Cesena. We are in a countryside that is a little flat, a little bare, at least that is how I remember it: fields, trees disturbed by humble cottages, by unpretentious villages, by this motorway that is a little out of place, out of scale. A countryside full of various patches, disharmonious but welcoming in its own way in accepting the messy initiatives of its inhabitants and conveying an air of tranquillity.
We leave the paved road turning onto a dirt track that takes us along a jungle of persimmon trees, dishevelled, dense, forgotten.
The dirt road is long, so I remember, we suspect we have taken a wrong turn.
But it ends right on the corner of a house half-buried by messy, somewhat wild trees and bushes. This house with washed-out walls seems closed in, we hear no noise except for the muffled echo of the motorway whose presence we can guess behind the vegetation, in the distance.
But there is a car parked in front of the garage door, one of those ageless cars you see in the countryside, beloved cars, sturdy and faded. And there is a road sign laid on the grass there - a blue metal circle with a big white arrow - that seems to indicate where to find the entrance to this house, on the long side.
The precision of a laser, the meticulousness and patience of the craftsman in reading our non-cities, our non-campaigns, and the obsession with the time of the shot, so that a light, a geometry, a lived absence can emerge.
Where does this humble and ironic magician live?
I don't know the place where Guido lives with his wife, and neither does Emilia-Romagna.
We have precise directions, we get off the motorway at Cesena. We are in a countryside that is a little flat, a little bare, at least that is how I remember it: fields, trees disturbed by humble cottages, by unpretentious villages, by this motorway that is a little out of place, out of scale. A countryside full of various patches, disharmonious but welcoming in its own way in accepting the messy initiatives of its inhabitants and conveying an air of tranquillity.
We leave the paved road turning onto a dirt track that takes us along a jungle of persimmon trees, dishevelled, dense, forgotten.
The dirt road is long, so I remember, we suspect we have taken a wrong turn.
But it ends right on the corner of a house half-buried by messy, somewhat wild trees and bushes. This house with washed-out walls seems closed in, we hear no noise except for the muffled echo of the motorway whose presence we can guess behind the vegetation, in the distance.
But there is a car parked in front of the garage door, one of those ageless cars you see in the countryside, beloved cars, sturdy and faded. And there is a road sign laid on the grass there - a blue metal circle with a big white arrow - that seems to indicate where to find the entrance to this house, on the long side.
We glimpse a wire mesh, also very lived-in, and taking a few steps along the façade, following the arrow, we discover a presence, a friendly wolfdog walking around in its enclosure, barking, waving.
I am reminded of the photos and stories of Louis-Ferdinand Celine's house in Meudon, a somewhat old but gracefully stately house buried in the greenery of a garden left to itself, a house that keeps its distance from visitors.
But here we are in the country, everything is simpler, more rustic, more accessible.
Guido and his wife have heard the dog, and we knock loudly on the front door: Guido leans in with his gentle, slightly mocking smile, we enter.
The room is rather large but narrow, long and rectangular, crammed with stacks of archive boxes and metal cupboards, with a large table acting as a counter behind which Guido sits. We sit in front of him chatting, behind us a broken sofa protected by a wooden plank (there is a water leak on it). Behind Guido's back the metal cupboards are covered with drawings of children - his beloved grandchildren - but also Guido's notes, all traced with a grease pencil.
And we will be there for hours, hearing stories, projects, looking at the photos that Guido brings out to support his stories.
We are immersed in Guido Guidi's world, in his tale of the land, in his demanding, patient, cultured and dazzling aesthetic.
We will go out to lunch in his circle-trattoria where Guido is also an old friend of everyone, with his habits.
This house, this countryside have bewitched us.
I am reminded of the photos and stories of Louis-Ferdinand Celine's house in Meudon, a somewhat old but gracefully stately house buried in the greenery of a garden left to itself, a house that keeps its distance from visitors.
But here we are in the country, everything is simpler, more rustic, more accessible.
Guido and his wife have heard the dog, and we knock loudly on the front door: Guido leans in with his gentle, slightly mocking smile, we enter.
The room is rather large but narrow, long and rectangular, crammed with stacks of archive boxes and metal cupboards, with a large table acting as a counter behind which Guido sits. We sit in front of him chatting, behind us a broken sofa protected by a wooden plank (there is a water leak on it). Behind Guido's back the metal cupboards are covered with drawings of children - his beloved grandchildren - but also Guido's notes, all traced with a grease pencil.
And we will be there for hours, hearing stories, projects, looking at the photos that Guido brings out to support his stories.
We are immersed in Guido Guidi's world, in his tale of the land, in his demanding, patient, cultured and dazzling aesthetic.
We will go out to lunch in his circle-trattoria where Guido is also an old friend of everyone, with his habits.
This house, this countryside have bewitched us.
Catherine Vautrin