Luciano Rigolini

Luciano Rigolini (born 2 August 1950) is a Swiss artist, photographer, bookmaker, producer, and former commissioning editor at Arte in Paris. Swiss Grand Award for Design 2024, the highest honour for Swiss designer and photographers assigned by the Federal Office of Culture (FOC)

Life and work He studied cinema but soon turned to photography.

In 1995 he joined the documentary unit of the European television channel Arte in Paris, where he was responsible for creative author film development until 2015. He produced films by filmmakers such as Chris Marker, Alexandre Sokourov, Naomi Kawase, Chantal Akerman, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Tsai Ming-liang, Laurie Anderson. He is the author of Arte of Collection Photo, 12 documentaries on the history of photography from its origins to today with the scientific collaboration of Quentin Bajac.

Since 2002 he has been working in photography exclusively through appropriation and rereading of amateur images and industrial documents. His work is also expressed through several author's books. Parr and Badger include Surrogates (2012) in the third volume of their photobook history. They write: "In Surrogates, he has taken as his source imagery spare parts for vintage cars available for sale on eBay. He then retouches and greatly enlarges them, presenting them on plain or colour-field backgrounds so that they become re-contextualized as formal images, stripped from their former function". Private/Used (2013) is a book of photographs of women in lingerie, selling their used underwear on eBay. Mask (2015) is a collection of grilles of cars made in Detroit between 1955 and 1962. and the Documentary Master of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. In 2024 Luciano Rigolini won the Swiss Grand Award for Design, the highest honour for Swiss designer and photographers assigned by the Federal Office of Culture (FOC)

Publications Luciano Rigolini: Fotografie '90–'92. Lugano: , 1992. . Catalog of an exhibition held at the Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano, 1992/93. German and Italian. Luciano Rigolini: Città aperta-Open City, Photographs 1990-1995. Catalog, Houston: Farish Gallery, Rice University School of Architecture, 1995. Une Tour. Paris: Edition Textuel, 2001. . Ritmo 04. Museo Cantonale d’Arte, 2004. La forma dello sguardo. Mendrisio Academy Press, 2007. . What you see. Fotostiftung Schweiz and Lars Müller publisher, 2008. . Another image. Skira, 2011. . Surrogates. Paris: Centre Culturel Suisse; Lausanne: Musée de l'Elysée, 2012. . "Apparere", 2024 . Paris: Atelier EXB. (ISBN 978-2-36511-423-3). Exhibitions Solo exhibitions Luciano Rigolini: Fotografie ’90–’92, , Lugano, 1992 Luciano Rigolini, Città aperta-Open City, Photographs 1990-1995, Farish Gallery, Rice University School of Architecture, Houston, 1995 Luciano RIgolini. Photographs 1990-1995, Foto Forum, St. Gallen, 1996 , Winterthur, 2008 Luciano Rigolini. Another image, Max Museo-Spazio Officina, Chiasso, 2011. Surrogates, Centre Culturelle Suisse, Paris, 2012 Luciano Rigolini, Concept Car, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, 2012-13. Luciano Rigolini – Landscape, Buchmann Art Galerie, Lugano, 2015. Luciano Rigolini,"FOTOGRAFICA", Fondation d'Art Erich Lindenberg, Porza/Lugano, 2024/25 Group exhibitions La fotografia contemporanea della collezione Gernsheim, Magazzini del sale, Venezia, e Roemer-Museum, Hildesheim, 1995 Architecture in black and white, Kunst- und Austellungshalle, der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, 1997 Il San Gottardo come arteria, Galleria Gottardo, Lugano, 1997 Icons: magnets of meaning, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1997 Zürich-Ein Fotoprtrait, Kunsthaus Zürich, 1997 Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, Paris, 2017 Fotografia Europea-European Photography, Galleria Gottardo, Reggio Emilia, 2017 Pendulum. Moving goods, moving people, Fondazione Mast, Bologna, 2018 Moonstruck: Photographic Explorations, Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, 2019

Films Documenta 7 (1982) – director; about Documenta 7 Portraits, 10 Swiss Artists Today (1987) – director The worlds of silence (2001) – director (with Silvana Bezzola) Naomi Kawase, Kya ka ra ba (2001) – commissioning editor Arte France Angela Ricci Lucchi, Yervant Gianikian, Images d’orient-Tourisme vandale (2001) – commissioning editor Arte France Alexandre Sokourov, Elegie de la traversée (2001) – commissioning editor Arte France Serguei Dvortsevoi, In the dark (2002) – commissioning editor Arte France Avi Mograbi, August, A moment before the eruption (2002) – commissioning editor Arte France Chantal Akerman, De l’autre côté (2002) – commissioning editor Arte France Chris Marker, Chats Perches (2004) – commissioning editor Arte France David Teboul, Bania (2005) – commissioning editor Arte France Lech Kowalski, East of paradise (2005) – commissioning editor Arte France Naomi Kawase, Tarachime (2006) – commissioning editor Arte France Naomi Kawase, Chiri (2012) – commissioning editor Arte France Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Mekong Hotel (2012) – commissioning editor Arte France Photo l’Integrale. Les Gands courants Photographiques, Une collection documentaire proposée par Luciano Rigolini, Arte France Editions, Paris (2009-2013) Tsai Ming-linag, Walker-Journey to the west (2014) – commissioning editor Arte France Laurie Anderson, Heart of a dog (2015) – commissioning editor Arte France Innocence of Memories (2015) – executive producer