Brazilian Modernist Photography (1939-1964).Construction,deconstruction,reconstruction (2025)

First impression

Large format hardcover in new condition.

Pages clean, binding firm

Text in english

About

In the 1940s, Brazil underwent a profound transformation. The country was industrializing, opening up internationally, welcoming a large European diaspora fleeing Nazism, and becoming fertile ground for the artistic avant-garde. Echoing this effervescence, a new generation of photographers seized the medium to accompany the aesthetic and cultural upheavals of their time.

As part of the movement that saw the birth of Oscar Niemeyer's architecture and vision of the modern city, Novo cinema and Bossa Nova, six figures contributed to the emergence of a new photography: Geraldo de Barros, German Lorca, Gertrudes Altschul, Marcel Giró, José Oiticica Filho and Thomaz Farkas.

The formal and aesthetic diversity of Brazilian modernist photography remains largely unknown. Through the work of thirty-three artists, the book sheds light on a daring generation that placed Brazil at the forefront of the international avant-garde movement.
A text by Marcella Legrand Marer and Helouise Costa, co-curators of the exhibition presented at the Rencontres d'Arles, introduces the book and looks back at the three high points of Brazilian modernism. The visual corpus is complemented by two essays by Rafael Cardoso, art historian and writer, and Julieta Pestarino, anthropologist, art historian and curator.