{"id":45862,"date":"2015-05-26T11:04:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T14:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/revista-zum-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/"},"modified":"2022-06-01T16:23:43","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T19:23:43","slug":"sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado, a Man of Contradictions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\n\n
With Genesis<\/em>, his most ambitious project so far, dedicated to portraying regions of the planet that foster nature at its untouched form or groups of humans that are isolated from civilization, Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado<\/strong> has attained unprecedented visibility for a Brazilian photographer. His entrepreneurial sense has transformed ten years of work into books, exhibitions and a documentary which he co-directed with filmmaker Wim Wenders. The photographer\u2019s much publicized fame has given rise to contrasting readings. For some, he has a romantic vision of the world; for others, he is an exploiter who aestheticizes suffering. In this article, critics and specialists comment on the oeuvre of the Paris-based photographer, who was born in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.<\/h5>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

When he was working on Genesis <\/em>(2013), his most recent project, photographer Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado claimed to have followed Charles Darwin\u2019s steps, having read the author\u2019s The Voyage of the Beagle <\/em>(1839). On his first day at work, Salgado visited one of the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific, at the foot of the Alcedo volcano, and found a tortoise of the species that lends its name to the Equatorial archipelago. He reports having trouble photographing the giant reptile, until he had the idea of crouching down and moving about on all fours. By remaining at the animal\u2019s height, Salgado believes he sent a message of respect, the same attitude that he consciously adopted so many other times when he portrayed a man, a woman or a child.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I photograph human beings, I never approach a group furtively or by surprise, I always introduce myself. Then I speak to the people, explain what I\u2019m doing, talk to them, and slowly we get to know each other. I realized that, in the same way, I would only be able to photograph that tortoise if I got to know it; I needed to adapt myself to it. So I turned myself into a tortoise,\u201d reports Salgado in his autobiography, From My Land to the Planet <\/em>(2014). In the same way as Darwin, of whom he claims to be a disciple, Salgado defends the theory that there is a common origin to all living beings. For him, nature and animals are all rational, have a personality, an identity or \u2013 a word he frequently uses \u2013 a dignity.<\/p>\n

Genesis <\/em>marked a change in Salgado\u2019s successful career. For the first time, the Brazilian photographer documented images of animals and natural landscapes. He associates this decision with the deep hopelessness which took hold of him when covering the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, during which at least 800,000 people were killed. In the documentary The Salt of the Earth <\/em>(2014), co-directed by his son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and the German filmmaker Wim Wenders, Salgado once again revealed his pessimism as regards the human species. Some of his photographs portraying the effect of the genocide are included in his book Exodus <\/em>(2000). In the making of this six-year project about refugees, Salgado shows his discouragement: \u201cI had faced our species at its worst and most violent and ceased to believe that it could ever be saved. With Genesis<\/em>, I changed my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is very passionate about his work,\u201d says Edward Burtynsky, an award-winning Canadian photographer whose work depicts the changes that industry makes to natural landscapes. \u201cGenesis <\/em>deals with hope when it points to the need to preserve an intact ecological system. There is something to fight for,\u201d he continues. As a professional, Burtynsky admits having the same concerns as Salgado, albeit his approach is \u201cdiametrically opposite\u201d to his. With his hyperrealist colour photographs, frequently taken from an aerial perspective, Burtynski does not convey an attitude of veneration or respect as regards nature. \u201cWhat I do is expand our consciousness about the consequences of mining, of water use or of deforestation on our daily urban life,\u201d he says. \u201cMy work is an alert to the unprecedented scale and speed of the growth of industrial production, aimed at meeting our growing consumption demands. At this rate, entire species will be in danger of extinction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite having started Genesis <\/em>using a analog camera, Salgado changed his mind and started using a digital one during the course of the endeavour. There are no other novelties, though. The use of black and white, the composition, the tonality, the baroque aesthetic and the dramatic effects that Salgado employed in his previous works are all used in Genesis<\/em>, an attempt to show us places in the planet that remain untouched by urbanization. \u201cIndeed, he retained his own technique and singular aesthetic, but the focus of his attention is different in the new project,\u201d says David Levi Strauss, art critic and Chair of the Art Criticism and Writing course at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Author of The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence <\/em>(2010), journalist Susie Linfield believes that Salgado\u2019s approach is frequently reverential to that which he chooses to photograph. \u201cHis images, in a pleasant black and white, are painstakingly composed, are dramatically theatrical and make use of light in a similar way to painting,\u201d writes Linfield. \u201cIt is true that Salgado\u2019s photographs may suggest a kind of nostalgic romanticism reminiscent of Socialist Realism.\u201d Officially adopted by the former Soviet Union, Socialist Realism is a doctrine that prescribes that the arts must participate in the consolidation of the Communist regime with a supposedly realist vision of the government\u2019s achievements and devoid of the experimental trends of modern art, which were regarded as bourgeois.<\/p>\n

According to Linfield, Salgado is a romantic. He does not have the rebellious nature of French photographer Gilles Peress, for example, as he does not stimulate the spectator to question his way of seeing and what he knows. For Linfield, Peress is a sceptic, someone who bares his own perplexity and mental confusion in his work. Peress doubts himself and assumes that the human condition is destined to failure. \u201cEven after the trauma in Rwanda, which Peres declared was also a turning point in his life, I do not view Salgado as a pessimist. If he ventured out again, to create Genesis<\/em>, it is because there is a degree of optimism that guides him. He still attempts to communicate with other human beings. He would have stopped if he had completely lost hope,\u201d says Linfield.<\/p>\n

The Brazilian photographer rarely discusses the relation between his aesthetic choices and his existential anguishes. In The Salt of the Earth<\/em>, as noted by Jay Weissberg, an American film critic who writes for Variety <\/em>magazine, Salgado talked superficially about his profession and spoke very little of his artistic influences. When he speaks in the documentary, nominated for the 2015 Oscars, he mentions Dante Alighieri, Lewis Carroll and Darwin, comparing what he captured in his photographs to the descriptions of the reality depicted in books by the three authors. An advocate of Salgado\u2019s work, defending him against those who have refuted the Brazilian as an exploiter of the suffering of the dispossessed, Strauss claims there is an anti-intellectual bias amidst certain photographers. Some professionals are suspicious of what Strauss classifies as \u201cself-examination\u201d: they ignore the most urgent issues in photographic practice. \u201cAlthough I do not consider Salgado an anti-intellectual, I have noticed that he avoids talking about the dilemmas of photography,\u201d says Strauss.<\/p>\n

Ever since he started his ascent to stardom in the world of photography in the 1980s, Salgado has been repeatedly criticized for being an aesthete, someone concerned primarily with elements of harmony and beauty in photography. Twenty years ago, North American postmodernist critics, among them Susan Sontag, Allan Sekula and Abigail Solomon-Godeau, interpreted Salgado\u2019s hope that his portraits could give a voice and dignity to refugee children, famished people, landless workers and impoverished indigenous populations as \u201cthe aestheticization of suffering.\u201d In one of the most ferocious attacks, published in 1991 by The New Yorker <\/em>magazine and entitled \u201cGood intentions\u201d, Ingrid Sischy said that Salgado had become obsessed with the composition of his photographs: above all, he was interested in finding the \u201cgrace\u201d and the \u201cbeauty\u201d in the \u201cdistorted forms of those he portrayed in agony and distress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sischy prefers the viewpoint of Walker Evans (1903-75), renowned for his work on the Great Depression, undertaken for the Farm Security Administration (a North American governmental agency), and author of portraits of poor sharecroppers in Alabama, collected in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men <\/em>(1941), with text by James Agee. Unlike Salgado, Evans was neither didactic nor sentimental in photographing the disadvantaged, which in the work of the Brazilian were \u201ccarefully composed in the likeness of still lifes.\u201d \u201cAnd the embellishment of tragedy results in images that ultimately reinforce our passiveness in regards to the experience that they reveal,\u201d writes Sischy. \u201cThe aestheticization of tragedy is the fastest way to anesthetise the feelings of those who witness it. Beauty is a call for contemplation, not for action.\u201d Sischy complained of the cult of Salgado, a photojournalist whose work had been accredited with a transformative power over issues relating to class, race and ethnicity.<\/p>\n

At the time, Sischy reiterated the theoretical notions of the postmodernists. \u201cBy the end of the 1980s, support for documentary practices was regarded, at best, as na\u00efve and, at its worst, as ideologically suspicious,\u201d notes Strauss, author of two essays on Salgado\u2019s photography, compiled in Between the Eyes <\/em>(2003). \u201cThis line of thought has now become the most accepted of the two amongst academics.\u201d According to Strauss, the origin of this idea alludes to Walter Benjamin (1892-1940). In the 1930s, Benjamin reflected on the artistic reaction to expressionism, which became known as New Objectivity. The German philosopher complained about \u201cthe way in which certain fashion photographers attempted to transform human misery into a consumer product.\u201d For Benjamin, New Objectivity \u201ctransforms political struggle so that it ceases to be a compelling motive for decision and becomes an object of comfortable contemplation.\u201d Strauss refutes the postmodernists\u2019 attempts to transform Salgado into an heir to New Objectivity.<\/p>\n

When he reflects on Salgado\u2019s documentary photography, Strauss prefers to quote the Uruguayan writer and journalist Eduardo Galeano, author of one of the texts from An Uncertain Grace <\/em>(1990), the catalogue of the exhibition organized by journalist Fred Ritchin at the Museum of Modern Art of San Francisco, in 1990. \u201cSalgado photographs people. Casual photographers photograph ghosts,\u201d writes Galeano. \u201cAs a consumer product, poverty is a source of morbid pleasure and a fair amount of money. Poverty is a commodity that attains high prices in the market of luxury goods. Photographers from the consumer society get close, but do not penetrate. In hasty visits to scenes of despair and violence, they get off the plane or the helicopter and immediately start shooting, they flash, they document and then they run. They look without seeing, and their images say nothing. Their coward photographs stained with horror and blood may extract a few crocodile tears, some pennies, one or two hypocritical words from the world\u2019s privileged few, and none of that changes the order of the universe.\u201d Strauss defends the theory that the images serve, above all, to document the distance between photographer and the subject. In Salgado\u2019s relationship with the people he portrays, there is no exploitation. Both the North American critic and the Uruguayan author believe that the Brazilian photographer has developed a style that is marked by solidarity \u2013 which helps \u2013 and not by charity \u2013 which humiliates.<\/p>\n

In the case of Genesis<\/em>, what sets Salgado apart from other photojournalists is his attitude, according to Fred Ritchin. \u201cIn this project, Salgado behaved like a proactive photographer. The convention of the photojournalistic tradition is that of the reactive photographer. He challenges it. Instead of denouncing a destroyed world, Salgado presents a universe that deserves to be preserved,\u201d says Ritchin, director of the International Centre of Photography (ICP), in Manhattan. The ICP was the only museum to show Genesis <\/em>in the United States. Salgado\u2019s association with the institution goes back a long way. Founded by Cornell Capa, Robert Capa\u2019s brother and creator of the term \u201cengaged photography,\u201d the ICP previously put on shows of some of the content of Exodus <\/em>and Workers <\/em>(1993). Ritchin, who has worked as an editor and curator of Salgado\u2019s work, defines him as a \u201csentimental, nostalgic, heroic, lyric\u201d photojournalist. In From My Land to the Planet<\/em>, Salgado described himself in the following way: \u201cI have always been able to position my images within a historical and sociological vision.\u201d If photography is \u201ca type of writing,\u201d Salgado believes he is using it to accomplish something that is common to all photographers: \u201cMy photographs are a reference to myself, to that which is going through my mind, that which I am living and thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The indigenous people from different regions of the planet are part of this world that deserves to be preserved and is defined by Salgado as \u201cpristine\u201d. \u201cThe primitive communities,\u201d in the photographer\u2019s definition, are joined by animals in the 31 exhibitions of Genesis<\/em>, which have been programmed to take place between 2013 and 2016 in Brazil, the United States, Canada, England, Italy, France, Spain, China, Sweden, Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, Singapore and Portugal. \u201cDespite the potential for polemic, placing images of animals and indigenous people next to each other makes sense,\u201d says Strauss. \u201cThis portion of humanity represents a real and effective traditional voice in the fight against global warming.\u201d In his autobiography, Salgado justifies the choice: \u201cMankind was originally very strong and very rich in something we eventually lost with time, as we became urban: our instincts. Instincts allow us to feel and foresee a number of things, a change in temperature or climatic phenomena, through observing the behaviour of animals. In reality, we are abandoning our planet, because the city is another planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mulheres<\/a>

Women from the Zo\u2019\u00e9 Towari Ypy settlement, Par\u00e1, 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

When writing A Different Light: the Photography of Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado <\/em>(2012), Parvati Nair talked to the Brazilian photographer and his wife, L\u00e9lia Wanick Salgado. Nair started investigating Salgado\u2019s \u201cplanetary photography\u201d because she admired his images with \u201ca very clear narrative about the social and economic problems of the world,\u201d especially in Exodus <\/em>(1997). She had access to the Genesis <\/em>material before the final selection was made for the exhibitions \u2013 seen by at least 1.5 million visitors \u2013 and in books published originally by Taschen in six languages. The German publisher produced the book in several formats, such as the art and the collector\u2019s edition in the United States. The first is composed of five limited editions of 100 copies each, numbered and signed by Salgado. Each copy costs ten thousand dollars and comes with a printed photo and a bookstand designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando, weighing a total of 59 kilos. Also numbered and signed, the collector\u2019s edition costs four thousand dollars. The commercial edition in Portuguese costs R$ 199,20, and at least sixty thousand copies were sold in Brazil.<\/p>\n

Nair finds continuity between Genesis <\/em>and Salgado\u2019s previous works. \u201cOn one hand, the more recent work provides a closure to a great career dedicated to understanding how modern life has dissociated human beings from nature. On the other, I detect choices that are worthy of criticism from the aesthetical and curatorial perspectives,\u201d she observes. The author of A Different Light <\/em>repeats Fred Ritchin\u2019s caveat, to whom L\u00e9lia\u2019s curatorial approach to Genesis<\/em>, assembling a great number of images into a single space, can provoke considerable and unwanted interference. \u201cBecause of this, the engagement with the content of the photographs is affected,\u201d says Nair, who visited the exhibition at the Museum of Natural History in London, in 2013.<\/p>\n

Despite considering herself a \u201cmilitant advocate of the beauty, the rhetoric and the baroque character of his photography,\u201d Nair believes that the majestic quality present in previous works has disappeared in Genesis<\/em>. \u201cFor the first time, Salgado made use of digital technology and a zoom lens. The digital images have an unnatural contrast and a grey scale that is less evident, and possibly this is why the beauty disappears. Genesis <\/em>needs another approach and it would be more interesting if it showed the presence of the modern world.\u201d Besides a digital camera, Salgado made use of satellite telephones, military vehicles, vessels, planes and other technological resources to make 32 trips between 2004 and 2012.<\/p>\n

Nair says that the juxtaposition of the indigenous people and animals is provocative. \u201cThe message is that they are human beings like us, while they also belong to the animal kingdom. Humanity is not the centre, but a part of the world. We share the planet with the rest.\u201d She also declares her annoyance at the romanticism as regards the animals, as though there is no violence or cruelty amongst them. In relation to his portrayal of the indigenous peoples, Genesis <\/em>reminded her of one of Salgado\u2019s first books, Other Americas <\/em>(1986), about different indigenous populations of Latin America. \u201cIn that work, the subjects seem slightly muted, two-dimensional,\u201d she declares. \u201cHe opted for the idealization of pre-modern communities.\u201d What bothered her the most in Genesis <\/em>was the resemblance to the photographs from the early years of anthropology in the 19th century, a field originally \u201ccreated as an European and colonizing intellectual project.\u201d \u201cThere is a general feeling that the indigenous are an exotic people from a distant place.\u201d<\/p>\n

In both A Different Light <\/em>and in conversation with ZUM, Nair describes Salgado as a man of contradictions. She considers it crucial to look back to his beginnings as an economist who, in 1973, aged 29 and living in Paris, decided to become a photographer. A leftist militant who joined the A\u00e7\u00e3o Popular [Popular front], Salgado moved from S\u00e3o Paulo to Europe because he feared that he and L\u00e9lia could become victims of the Brazilian military dictatorship. \u201cWe participated in all the demonstrations and all the actions of resistance to the dictatorship and were, along with our comrades, fiercely determined to defend our ideas. This was, of course, extremely dangerous. Our group decided that the youngest of us, who included L\u00e9lia and I, should go abroad to study and continue as activists from there, while the older ones would go into hiding,\u201d he declares in From My Land to the Planet<\/em>. To this day Salgado thinks of socioeconomic problems from a leftist perspective. \u201cWe should admit that the consumer society of which we are part exploits and pauperizes the inhabitants of the planet,\u201d he states in his autobiography.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there is something contradictory about a marxist who accepts money from private companies to finance his own photographic production. Genesis <\/em>draws attention to the problem of global warming, but the exhibition and the book are sponsored by Vale [a Brazilian multinational mining company, the third largest in the world],\u201d states Nair. At the same time, Salgado and L\u00e9lia founded the Instituto Terra, an environmental project supported by Vale to reforest the Atlantic Forest in the family\u2019s farm in Aimor\u00e9s, Minas Gerais, where the photographer was raised. \u201cSalgado uses photography to promote his vision of the world, which is planetary and panoramic. And the result is as follows: the greatest critic of the global predicament profits from his work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nair points to the fact that the advertising work produced by Salgado for companies, such as Silk Cut (cigarettes), Le Creuset (cookware), Volvo (cars) and Illy (coffee), is not widely known. In an article for The Independent <\/em>in 2005, Paul Arden, director of the 1988 advertising campaign for Silk Cut, revealed that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA, the independent advertising regulatory body for the UK) censured the photographs of the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea taken by Salgado \u201con the pretext that they were offensive to ethical minorities.\u201d \u201cI think that the ASA got scared because they didn\u2019t know how to look at and interpret the images,\u201d wrote Arden, a collector of Salgado\u2019s work and owner of the Arden and Anstruther photographic gallery in England.<\/p>\n

For the campaign for Illy, started in 2002, Salgado visited eight countries (Brazil, India, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Colombia, China, El Salvador and Costa Rica) to photograph the coffee growers and coffee production. \u201cInstead of presenting itself as promoting Illy\u2019s coffee, the campaign\u2019s website states that it is a joint tribute from Illy and Salgado to the coffee growers,\u201d writes Nair in A Different Light<\/em>. \u201cClearly, just like the company, Salgado tries to ally his world vision and ethical commitments to his need for involvement in a commercial project. In doing so, however, he embroils his work in the capitalist context he seeks to criticize.\u201d A selection of these photographs about coffee will be presented at Expo Milano this year and published in book form in several countries. Salgado has not responded to ZUM\u2019s interview requests.<\/p>\n

During her involvement with the couple, Nair saw that L\u00e9lia is \u201ca businesswoman who knows how to fight battles,\u201d and Salgado, \u201csomeone who is extremely well-informed, who always speaks of percentages and statistics.\u201d Before founding Amazonas Images, in Paris, in 1994, Salgado worked for three of the most prestigious photography agencies of the world: Sygma, Gamma and Magnum. It was as a member of the latter, founded by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour and George Rodger in the 1940s, and which Salgado sees as competitive, that he documented the gunshot assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981, when he was President of the United States. The exclusive images, reproduced by several media channels around the world, generated considerable income for Magnum at the time. \u201cI should say that, somehow, this shooting was very interesting for me and for Magnum, which was facing financial problems at the time: all my photographs were sold!,\u201d reports Salgado in From My Land to the Planet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the same autobiography, he says how \u201cin response to specific needs that were raised by photographers, a division into different sectors was needed for better managing their archives and commercializing their images. I proposed to Magnum the creation of production units. I am sure that they would have improved profitability and coherence. My idea was not accepted.\u201d Salgado and L\u00e9lia\u2019s insistence on the need to restructure the agency began to be viewed by colleagues as an individualist attitude, according to a profile feature article on the photographer published by The New Yorker <\/em>in 2005. \u201cSalgado told me that L\u00e9lia participated in meetings at Magnum. The truth is that she has a crucial role and almost no one knows the extent of her importance,\u201d says Nair. Salgado has stated on several occasions that his work is possible thanks to the entrepreneurial organisation and the affective balance which comes from L\u00e9lia.<\/p>\n

Another aspect of Salgado\u2019s production, which is not widely known, refers to his influences, which he very seldom speaks of. In conversations with the photographer while writing one of the texts of the catalogue for the Territoires et Vies <\/em>exhibition, held in Paris in 2005, Joaquim Mar\u00e7al Ferreira de Andrade became aware that the period Salgado spent in Aimor\u00e9s may have been crucial to his professional development. That was when he came into contact with Christian iconography and the classical language of the photojournalism as practiced in the first half of the 20th century. \u201cReligious symbolism is very present. Salgado mentions that he used to stand by the entrances to the region\u2019s Catholic churches. He admits having inherited the Baroque culture,\u201d says Andrade. \u201cHis use of the photographic language is conscious. Part of it begins in the 1950s, when he read magazines such as O Cruzeiro <\/em>and Manchete<\/em>, which reproduced the images of the most renowned photojournalists of the time.\u201d The members of Magnum, whose work became widely known due to such Brazilian weekly publications, all had leftist and anti-fascist ideas. The emphasis rested on a subjective interpretation of reality, to which they\u2019d present lines of reasoning marked by different states of mind, such as anger, hope, humour or sadness. \u201cDespite the fact that Genesis <\/em>transits between artistic and documental photography, it is important to stress that Salgado\u2019s roots lie in photojournalism,\u201d points out Edward Burtynsky.<\/p>\n

In his autobiography, Salgado declares that the natural light and the mountains of Minas Gerais have influenced his ability to see. \u201cIn the rainy season, when phenomenal storms begin to form, the sky starts to fill with clouds. I was born with images of rays of light streaming through skies, laden with heavy dark clouds. This light permeates my images. In fact, I lived inside them even before I started to produce them. I also grew up with backlight: when I was a child, because of my fair skin, I was always made to wear a hat or sit under a tree. At that time there was no such thing as sunscreen. And I used to watch my father moving towards me in the sun, backlit,\u201d he recounts in From My Land to the Planet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Author of Hist\u00f3ria da Fotorreportagem no Brasil<\/em> [history of photojournalism in Brazil] (2003), Andrade considers Workers <\/em>to be Salgado\u2019s masterpiece, and considers him to be one of the most important photojournalists in history. \u201cHe has conceived a project with which he has travelled around the world, working obstinately, with an untiring re-edition and a publication by degrees, which could possibly change our understanding about the modern meaning of work,\u201d says Andrade. With Exodus<\/em>, something may have changed, although it still represented a singular proposal: the demeanour of a great enterprise aligned with something original. \u201cBoth works can be embraced by a single man. Both have a vision of a complex whole and are more authorial than Genesis<\/em>,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Andrade considers that Salgado\u2019s most recent enterprise evokes the production of North American landscape photographers such as Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) and Ansel Adams (1902-84), and the renowned visual language of National Geographic<\/em>, first published in 1888. \u201cIt is inevitable to think of images of untouched areas of the planet taken by these unequalled professionals,\u201d he says. \u201cAs we look closely at Genesis<\/em>, it seems as though the photography is caught in the straitjacket of the black and white. Salgado roamed throughout the world with a digital camera to produce an oeuvre that demanded colour.\u201d In a way, it is as though Genesis <\/em>could be compared to a Hollywood film: it has maintained a successful formula, but one that lacks originality. \/\/\/<\/p>\n

\"Sebasti\u00e3o<\/a>

Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado holding one of the editions of Genesis, 2013<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

images<\/strong>: \u00a9 Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado and Taschen<\/p>\n

+
\nGenesis<\/em>, by Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado, (Taschen, 2013)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado<\/strong> (1944), a Brazilian photojournalist from Aimor\u00e9s in Minas Gerais, is the author of Workers<\/em> and, more recently, Genesis<\/em>, as well as other works.<\/p>\n

Francisco Quinteiro Pires<\/strong> (1982) is a journalist. Born in Brazil, he has been living in New York since 2010.<\/p>\n

Article published in ZUM Magazine #8<\/a> (april 2015). In this issue it was also published “… And God created Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado”, <\/em>text by Rodrigo Naves, writer and art critic.<\/p>\n

\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Get to know<\/a> ZUM\u2019s issues | See<\/a> other highlights from ZUM #8 | Buy<\/a> this issue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Genesis, his most ambitious project so far, dedicated to portraying regions of the planet that foster nature at its untouched form or groups of humans that are isolated from civilization, Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado has attained unprecedented visibility for a Brazilian photographer. His entrepreneurial sense has transformed ten years of work into books, exhibitions and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":36664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1616],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1816,2153],"class_list":["post-45862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zum-magazine-8"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSebasti\u00e3o Salgado, a Man of Contradictions - ZUM<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado, a Man of Contradictions - ZUM\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With Genesis, his most ambitious project so far, dedicated to portraying regions of the planet that foster nature at its untouched form or groups of humans that are isolated from civilization, Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado has attained unprecedented visibility for a Brazilian photographer. His entrepreneurial sense has transformed ten years of work into books, exhibitions and a […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ZUM\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-26T14:04:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-06-01T19:23:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/031.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2048\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1367\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Revista ZUM, Francisco Quinteiro Pires\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Revista ZUM, Francisco Quinteiro Pires\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"26 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Revista ZUM\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/8e8c635563c29c97665a94a88a197738\"},\"headline\":\"Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado, a Man of Contradictions\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-26T14:04:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-06-01T19:23:43+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":4526,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/05\\\/031.jpg?fit=2048%2C1367&ssl=1\",\"articleSection\":[\"ZUM Magazine 8\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/\",\"name\":\"Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado, a Man of Contradictions - ZUM\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/05\\\/031.jpg?fit=2048%2C1367&ssl=1\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-26T14:04:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-06-01T19:23:43+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/8e8c635563c29c97665a94a88a197738\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/05\\\/031.jpg?fit=2048%2C1367&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/05\\\/031.jpg?fit=2048%2C1367&ssl=1\",\"width\":2048,\"height\":1367},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/zum-magazine-8\\\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"In\u00edcio\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado, a Man of Contradictions\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/\",\"name\":\"ZUM\",\"description\":\"revista de fotografia\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/8e8c635563c29c97665a94a88a197738\",\"name\":\"Revista ZUM\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/ac7a0017cd2f1f5b0db09c4d1fd2b6dc78742b6387d0a327061b216902dc4826?s=96&d=mm&r=g653ed1dcdf69002aafa3c2d11b8df94d\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/ac7a0017cd2f1f5b0db09c4d1fd2b6dc78742b6387d0a327061b216902dc4826?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/ac7a0017cd2f1f5b0db09c4d1fd2b6dc78742b6387d0a327061b216902dc4826?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Revista ZUM\"},\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/revistazum.com.br\\\/en\\\/author\\\/carlos-franco\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado, a Man of Contradictions - ZUM","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado, a Man of Contradictions - ZUM","og_description":"With Genesis, his most ambitious project so far, dedicated to portraying regions of the planet that foster nature at its untouched form or groups of humans that are isolated from civilization, Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado has attained unprecedented visibility for a Brazilian photographer. His entrepreneurial sense has transformed ten years of work into books, exhibitions and a […]","og_url":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/","og_site_name":"ZUM","article_published_time":"2015-05-26T14:04:32+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-06-01T19:23:43+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2048,"height":1367,"url":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/031.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Revista ZUM, Francisco Quinteiro Pires","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Revista ZUM, Francisco Quinteiro Pires","Est. reading time":"26 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/"},"author":{"name":"Revista ZUM","@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/#\/schema\/person\/8e8c635563c29c97665a94a88a197738"},"headline":"Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado, a Man of Contradictions","datePublished":"2015-05-26T14:04:32+00:00","dateModified":"2022-06-01T19:23:43+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/"},"wordCount":4526,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/revistazum.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/031.jpg?fit=2048%2C1367&ssl=1","articleSection":["ZUM Magazine 8"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/","url":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/","name":"Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado, a Man of Contradictions - ZUM","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/revistazum.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/031.jpg?fit=2048%2C1367&ssl=1","datePublished":"2015-05-26T14:04:32+00:00","dateModified":"2022-06-01T19:23:43+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/#\/schema\/person\/8e8c635563c29c97665a94a88a197738"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/revistazum.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/031.jpg?fit=2048%2C1367&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/revistazum.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/031.jpg?fit=2048%2C1367&ssl=1","width":2048,"height":1367},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/zum-magazine-8\/sebastiao-salgado-a-man-of-contradictions\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"In\u00edcio","item":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sebasti\u00e3o Salgado, a Man of Contradictions"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/#website","url":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/","name":"ZUM","description":"revista de fotografia","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/#\/schema\/person\/8e8c635563c29c97665a94a88a197738","name":"Revista ZUM","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ac7a0017cd2f1f5b0db09c4d1fd2b6dc78742b6387d0a327061b216902dc4826?s=96&d=mm&r=g653ed1dcdf69002aafa3c2d11b8df94d","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ac7a0017cd2f1f5b0db09c4d1fd2b6dc78742b6387d0a327061b216902dc4826?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ac7a0017cd2f1f5b0db09c4d1fd2b6dc78742b6387d0a327061b216902dc4826?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Revista ZUM"},"url":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/author\/carlos-franco\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/revistazum.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/031.jpg?fit=2048%2C1367&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46966,"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45862\/revisions\/46966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45862"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistazum.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=45862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}