Brazilian Modernist Photography (1939-1964)

In the 1940s, Brazil was undergoing a major transformation: It was modernising, increasing international trade, attracting large numbers of European emigrants and inspiring dreams. Witnesses to this revolution were the artists of the modernist movement, including photographers whose images tell the story of Brazil's entry onto the cosmopolitan art scene. In the wake of Oscar Niemeyer's architecture, his vision of the modern city, the Novo cinema and Bossa Nova, five figures helped to create a new kind of photography: Geraldo de Barros, German Lorca, Gertrudes Altschul, José Oiticica Filho and Thomaz Farkas. Seizing on the political, social and aesthetic potential of photography, they introduced new subjects: modernist architecture and its supple lines, botanical motifs with contrasting light and shadow, inventive experiments and perspective games tinged with a taste for abstraction. Foto Clubes Carioca in Rio de Janeiro and the Foto Clube Bandeirante in São Paulo, amateur clubs that democratised the use of the medium and forged contacts with their European and American counterparts, were another phenomenon that contributed to the emergence and influence of a new photography. With its incredible diversity and originality, both formal and aesthetic, the modernist photography of these pioneers stimulated an entire generation and put Brazil firmly on the avant-garde scene.largely unknown, Brazilian modernist photography is presented here through the work of more than twenty leading figures, some of whose works are held in prestigious international institutions such as MoMA in New York, the Tate Modern in London and the Photo Elysée in Lausanne. Texts by historians of the medium will situate this production in the social and visual context of the time, and evoke the many exchanges between institutions and photoclubs around the world.