Afro-Brasil. Portrait Photography in Brazil 1869/2013
11 Oct 2013 - 05 Jan 2014
Cultural Transfers # 6
AFRO-BRASIL. PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN BRAZIL 1869/2013
11 October 2013 – 5 January 2014
Cultures are subject to permanent change. They are influenced by voluntary or forced appropriations, assimilations, and modifications of ways of thinking, religions, images, and cultural strategies. Brazil, shaped by its history of immigration through European colonization, and just as strongly by the violent influx of African slaves, and by its own indigenous peoples, is a rich field for any investigation of "cultural transfers".
Photographer Luciana Gama (born 1969), who lives in São Paulo, looks at cultural appropriation and transfer in her series of photos. She traces the connections between various cultural trends that, in diverse images, all allude to the syncretism of Afro-Brazilian faiths. Eustáquio Neves (born 1955), who works in Diamantina in the federal state of Minas Gerais, operates formally within the traditions of portrait photography, but then dissolves his portraits into a number of different visual and intellectual levels within a complex process of developing and manipulating. Curator Marcelo Cardoso Gama contrasts these two artists with the historical series by photographer Alberto Henschel (born 1827, Berlin; died 1882, São Paulo). As an immigrant in the mid-nineteenth century he opened photo studios in Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and Recife, and finally advanced to become the court photographer of Emperor Dom Pedro II. His work reflects Brazilian society from courtly pomp to the self-representation of the middle classes to the slaves from the African diaspora. Henschel’s photographic depictions of Afro-Brazilians are at the centre of this exhibition. They are not just a hitherto hardly researched treasure of images, but also tell the story of the foundation of Brazil, whose colonial past is still seen today in the country’s great diversity of ethnic groups, religions, and cultures.
Luciana Gama (aka Shlomit Or, born 1969 in São Paulo) studied photography, literature and linguistics at the University of São Paulo. She received her PhD in Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and the Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil. After her conversion to Judaism a second name, Shlomit Or, was given to her. 2001 to 2009 she worked as associated professor of Brazilian literature at the Universidade Estadual do of Southwest Bahia in Brazil. Between 2010 and 2012 she held several photography workshops. She is also a contributing Editor of the magazine Revista USP and Floema. Luciana Gama participated in the 2009 exhibition "A New Eye on Israel" in Tel Aviv. In 2010 she won with a photographic series on "Jerusalem – a city of three religions," the Prize of the Ministry of Culture in Israel.
Alberto Henschel (*1827 in Berlin, + 1882 in São Paulo) immigrated mid of the 19th Century to Brazil. There he opened photo studios in Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Recife and was appointed by the Emperor Dom Pedro II as one of the photographers of the royal court. In photographs, which are thousands in amount, he documented the Brazilian society - from the courtly production, the bourgeois self-presentation to the representation of slaves from the African diaspora. The image of the other, and the exotic stranger played also an important role, as the medium of photography as an instrument to produce meaning by itself.
Since 1984 Eustáquio Neves (* 1955 in Juatuba, Minas Gerais) worked as a freelance photographer. Typical of his portraits, mostly of African-Brazilians, is that he dissolves the figures in a complex development and manipulation procedures. In 1994 Eustáquio Neves won the Marc Ferrez-Award, in 1997 he was awarded by the National Award for Photography. He participated at the Havana Biennial, the Photofesta in Maputo, Mozambique, and the festival "Rencontres de la Photographie" in Bamako.
AFRO-BRASIL. PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN BRAZIL 1869/2013
11 October 2013 – 5 January 2014
Cultures are subject to permanent change. They are influenced by voluntary or forced appropriations, assimilations, and modifications of ways of thinking, religions, images, and cultural strategies. Brazil, shaped by its history of immigration through European colonization, and just as strongly by the violent influx of African slaves, and by its own indigenous peoples, is a rich field for any investigation of "cultural transfers".
Photographer Luciana Gama (born 1969), who lives in São Paulo, looks at cultural appropriation and transfer in her series of photos. She traces the connections between various cultural trends that, in diverse images, all allude to the syncretism of Afro-Brazilian faiths. Eustáquio Neves (born 1955), who works in Diamantina in the federal state of Minas Gerais, operates formally within the traditions of portrait photography, but then dissolves his portraits into a number of different visual and intellectual levels within a complex process of developing and manipulating. Curator Marcelo Cardoso Gama contrasts these two artists with the historical series by photographer Alberto Henschel (born 1827, Berlin; died 1882, São Paulo). As an immigrant in the mid-nineteenth century he opened photo studios in Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and Recife, and finally advanced to become the court photographer of Emperor Dom Pedro II. His work reflects Brazilian society from courtly pomp to the self-representation of the middle classes to the slaves from the African diaspora. Henschel’s photographic depictions of Afro-Brazilians are at the centre of this exhibition. They are not just a hitherto hardly researched treasure of images, but also tell the story of the foundation of Brazil, whose colonial past is still seen today in the country’s great diversity of ethnic groups, religions, and cultures.
Luciana Gama (aka Shlomit Or, born 1969 in São Paulo) studied photography, literature and linguistics at the University of São Paulo. She received her PhD in Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and the Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil. After her conversion to Judaism a second name, Shlomit Or, was given to her. 2001 to 2009 she worked as associated professor of Brazilian literature at the Universidade Estadual do of Southwest Bahia in Brazil. Between 2010 and 2012 she held several photography workshops. She is also a contributing Editor of the magazine Revista USP and Floema. Luciana Gama participated in the 2009 exhibition "A New Eye on Israel" in Tel Aviv. In 2010 she won with a photographic series on "Jerusalem – a city of three religions," the Prize of the Ministry of Culture in Israel.
Alberto Henschel (*1827 in Berlin, + 1882 in São Paulo) immigrated mid of the 19th Century to Brazil. There he opened photo studios in Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Recife and was appointed by the Emperor Dom Pedro II as one of the photographers of the royal court. In photographs, which are thousands in amount, he documented the Brazilian society - from the courtly production, the bourgeois self-presentation to the representation of slaves from the African diaspora. The image of the other, and the exotic stranger played also an important role, as the medium of photography as an instrument to produce meaning by itself.
Since 1984 Eustáquio Neves (* 1955 in Juatuba, Minas Gerais) worked as a freelance photographer. Typical of his portraits, mostly of African-Brazilians, is that he dissolves the figures in a complex development and manipulation procedures. In 1994 Eustáquio Neves won the Marc Ferrez-Award, in 1997 he was awarded by the National Award for Photography. He participated at the Havana Biennial, the Photofesta in Maputo, Mozambique, and the festival "Rencontres de la Photographie" in Bamako.