Yanomami shaman performs a ritual before the ascent to Pico da Neblina. State of Amazonas, Brazil, 2014 © Sebastião Salgado

What I want is the world to remember the problems and the people I photograph.

—Sebastião Salgado

Born in Aimorés, Brazil, Sebastião Salgado is an internationally acclaimed photojournalist who documents unblemished landscapes, wildlife, and indigenous communities while promoting preservation on Earth. As 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Federative Republic of Brazil, the exhibition “Brazil, Back to the Earth” featuring selected representative works by Brazilian photojournalist Sebastião Salgado was presented at the CAFA Art Museum.

Transporting timber to a village in the eastern part of Madre de Dios, near Hualtla de Jimenez, 1980 © Sebastião SalgadoCeará State, Northeastern Brazil © Sebastião Salgado

Spanning over 40 years of photography taken by Sebastião Salgado in Brazil and around the world, this exhibition reflected his profound insight into his homeland Brazil as well as the plight that people and nature are confronted with. Co-organized by Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum, Wisdom Times and the Embassy of the Federative Republic of Brazil in Beijing, with academic support from the Central Academy of Fine Arts and co-curated by Milton Guran and Jean-Luc Monterosso, the exhibition was highlighted by more than 30 of Salgado’s most iconic works, retrospecting the creative career of Sebastião Salgado, Brazil’s most outstanding photographer, through his lens.

Serra Pelada gold mine, State of Pará, Brazil, 1986 © Sebastião SalgadoSuburbs of Guatemala City, 1978 © Sebastião Salgado

Sebastião Salgado’s straightforward photographs portray individuals living in desperate economic circumstances. His photographs have imparted the dignity and integrity of his subjects without forcing their heroism or implicitly soliciting pity. Through photography, Salgado communicates a subtle understanding of social and economic situations that is seldom available in other photographers’ representations of similar themes. His projects capture the human side of his homeland even though it often involves death, destruction, and decay. In his works, he keeps revealing unprecedented dangers threatening our planet this century including global warming, soil degradation, ocean pollution and the destruction of biodiversity, especially those related to the Amazon, home of 310,000 indigenous residents represent 169 ethnic groups speaking over 130 languages. Also, he cares about the living conditions of his countrymen by focusing on struggles experienced by vulnerable groups who were suffering from conflicts and poverty caused by the tremendous changes in contemporary society.

While this exhibition ended at CAFA Art Museum, Sebastião Salgado’s biggest and latest exhibition AMAZÔNIA will be unveiled in Barcelona from December 4, 2024.

References:

1. https://amazoniasebastiaosalgado.com/barcelona/en/ 

2. https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/sebasti%c3%a3o-salgado?all/all/all/all/0

About the Artist

Sebastião Salgado (born February 8, 1944, Aimorés, Brazil) trained as an economist before becoming a photographer in the early 1970s. He earned an MA in economics from São Paulo University in 1968 and a PhD in economics from the University of Paris in 1971. His work at the International Coffee Organization in London required him to make frequent trips to Africa, and his desire to document these experiences sparked his interest in photography; by 1974 he was freelancing as a photojournalist for the Sygma agency in Paris. He then worked for Gamma from 1975 until 1979, when he joined Magnum, the international photography cooperative founded in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, George Rodger and Chim (David Seymour). Salgado has produced a number of extended documentary series throughout his career, several of which have been published. These include Sahel: L'homme en détresse (1986), Other Americas (1986), An Uncertain Grace (1990), and Workers (1993), a worldwide investigation of the increasing obsolescence of manual labor. Salgado has won many honors for his work, among them the Eugene Smith Award for Humanitarian Photography, two ICP Infinity Awards for Journalism, the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Award, and the Arles International Festival’s prize for best photography book of the year for Workers.

Mexico, 1980 © Sebastião Salgado

About the Exhibition

Dates: November 12-December 1, 2024

Venue: CAFA Art Museum

Courtesy of the Artist and CAFA Art Museum, edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.