Giorgio Morandi was renowned for his subtle yet stirring still lifes, and the Italian painter’s Bologna studio remains home to the everyday objects he once depicted. In 2015 the American photographer Joel Meyerowitz went to Casa Morandi and photographed each item he found: vases of dead flowers, empty grappa bottles, tobacco tins, stopped clocks.
Meyerowitz’s statuesque photos are conversant with Morandi, using his dusty, marked tabletop to play with stillness and shadow, asking questions about perception, object permanence and human ephemerality. At the time, this archiving culminated in a book, Morandi’s Objects; now an expanded edition is being released. Writing in an accompanying essay, Meyerowitz noted his aim: “Gaining another level of wonder and appreciation for [Morandi’s] transformations.”
Morandi’s Objects: The Complete Archive of Casa Morandi by Joel Meyerowitz is published by Damiani Books on 17 March
