Luisa Lambri

Luisa Lambri is an Italian artist whose ephemeral photographs stand in clear contrast to the established practice of architectural photography which has traditionally focused its attention on the exteriors of buildings. She travels the world photographing architectural interiors, often spending extended periods of time experiencing the buildings before she begins shooting. Her images give a sense of experience of being in the space as her photographs not only capture the physical topology of these structures but elaborate on the profound psychological and emotional responses they elicit from their inhabitants. She primarily photographs private houses, focusing on the view from the inside to the outside thereby establishing a physical and conceptual position for herself and the viewer. These delicately crafted images oscillate between objective representations of space and Lambri’s perceptions and reactions.

Luisa Lambri was born in Como, Italy in 1969 and not formally trained as a photographer or filmmaker, she studied at the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Milan and received her PhD from the Department of Visual Arts, Music and Theater, University of Bologna, where she wrote her thesis on the work of Cindy Sherman.

Lambri utilizes traditional as well as new digital printing techniques to move her photographs beyond pure documentation. The photographs reference minimalism and abstract painting, evoking moments of transcendence. Lambri’s selective framing and editing of the images pay homage to the Modernist aesthetic and establish an atmosphere that transcends the immediate function of the structures. The work realizes its full meaning when it is installed in a new space and in so doing establishes a new relationship between the viewer, the object and the space.

Her work has been included in two Venice Biennales: dAPERTutto, the 48th International Art Exposition in 1999, for which the Italian Pavilion was awarded the Golden Lion, and Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer, the 50th International Art Exposition in 2003. Her one-person exhibitions have been presented internationally at venues including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; The Menil Collection, Houston, TX; the Palazzo Re Rebaudengo, Guarene d’Alba, Italy and the Hammer Museum of Art in Los Angeles. Forum 57: Luisa Lambri and Ernesto Netowas presented at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh 2006. Lambri’s work has been included in thematic exhibitions including Italics: Italian Art between Tradition and Revolution, 1968-2008, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; 31 Panorama of Brazilian Art, Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Painting the Glass House: Artists Revisit Modern Architecture, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and the Yale School of Architecture, New Haven; The Shapes of Space, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Grand Promenade, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; Vanishing Point, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; Living Inside the Grid, New Museum, New York; and Yesterday Begins Tomorrow: Ideals, Dreams and the Contemporary Awakening, Center for Curatorial Studies Museum, Bard College, New York.

Luisa Lambri currently lives and works in Los Angeles.