Vilém Flusser was one of the most original philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. And it is only now that we are beginning to understand much of what he wrote in the 1980s. Born in 1920 in Prague, he took refuge in England in 1939. The following year he emigrated to Brazil, […]
The new Brazilian edition of Gilberto Freyre’s classic book removed the slave quarters and the black slaves from its cover. Intrigued by the change, the history professor MAURICIO LISSOVSKY shows how the old slave quarters have lost their meaning of oppression and cruelty to become a place of enjoyment. The result of these shifts is […]
The nonagenarian photographer from Minas Gerais state immortalised the architectural heritage and the society of Diamantina. But his career got a new impulse in 1943, with the Labour Laws, promulgated by President Getúlio Vargas. When he made it compulsory for workers to have a work card with a photo, that was all that was needed […]
RAUL GARCEZ (1949-1987) photographed the Várzea do Carmo housing estate, the oldest in São Paulo, between October 1979 and April 1980. His images recorded the intimacy of the residents in a rare combination of anthropological viewpoint and formal investigation. The housing estate Várzea do Carmo was designed in 1942 by Attilio Corrêa Lima for the Industrial […]
The different ways ANTONIO MANUEL uses photography in his work. IN HIS RECENT EXHIBITION at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro (December 2013 to February 2014), Antonio Manuel showed two new installation works, one of which entitled Até que a imagem desapareça [until the image disappears]. For many years he focused only on […]
In conversation with ZUM about his latest book, critic and professor FRED RITCHIN addresses the dilemmas facing contemporary photojournalism, the role of the photographer and the challenges posed by digital media. Ritchin suggests that journalists find new ways to narrate events visually and confesses his enthusiasm for citizen journalism, even with the dangers it brings […]
For five decades, MALICK SIDIBÉ has been Mali’s unmistakable visual narrator. Still working from a simple studio, he has portrayed the effervescence of decolonization and a people rediscovering its identity. WHEN IT COMES TO MASTERS of portraiture, many renowned photographers come to mind, such as Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Philippe Halsman, and many others. And there are […]
French filmmaker CHRIS MARKER rides the Paris Metro in search of the faces of passengers. Chris Marker’s series of photographs Passengers, taken between 2008 and 2010, focuses on women, relegating men to the role of extras. Amongst the tired faces and bodies of these lone women on the Paris metro, the main characters are the sleeping […]
An eternal adventurer, the Spanish photographer ALBERTO GARCÍA-ALIX, who recorded the rebellious years of la movida madrileña, presents his new road companions Motorcycles arrived before photography in Alberto García-Alix’s life. He was 12 years old, not a sign of his trademark side-whiskers yet to be seen, when his parents gave him a yellow Ducati. The […]
The British photographer and researcher James Mollison spent almost three years in colombian photography libraries and collections in search of the drug dealer. With images amassed from police collections and the principal newspapers, and from albums put together by his family and thugs, Mollison reconstructed Escobar’s life. The photographs reveal his public and private life, […]
