Geraldo de Barros / Vik Muniz
dal 24/6/2000 al 24/9/2000
Segnalato da
24/6/2000
Geraldo de Barros / Vik Muniz
Musee de L'Elysee, Lausanne
Geraldo de Barros (1923-1998) was one
of the pioneers of abstract photography
in Brazil. As was evident from his
exhibition Fotoformas in 1950 at the
then recently established Museum of Art
of Sao Paulo, he foreshadowed the
geometric movement of concrete art, of
which he was to become one of the
main exponents in his country. His
photographs at that time reflected his
fertile imagination, and included prints
from multiple-exposured negatives and
scratched, cut and cropped ones. He
also made photograms and drawings in
Indian ink on the film.
Everything was possible for this artist
whose enthusiasm reflected the cultural
effervescence of the young Brazilian
democracy. He subsequently went to
Paris where he studied print-making,
abandoned photography and turned to
painting. On his return to Sao Paulo, his
idealism encouraged him to set up a
collective enterprise for the production
of furniture which he himself designed.
In order to make products of high
aesthetic quality available to the
largest number of people, he naturally
turned to industrial design and
graphism. Following an exhibition of
Fotoformas at the Musée de lElysée in
1993, Geraldo de Barros resumed his
experiments in photograpy, using his
own images of ski scenes in Argentina,
landscapes and family portraits as raw
material, or as ready-mades, which he
cut, juxtaposed and reworked with an
astonishing sense of jubilation. This
series of compositions at the frontier
between abstraction and figuration is
entitled Sobras, which in Portuguese
means remnants or left-overs. The
family of Geraldo de Barros has
bequeathed all his work to the Musée
de lElysee, which is delighted to have
this opportunity to make it better
known in Europe. The exhibition is
accompanied by a monograph published
by Editions Prestel, produced in
association with the Ludwig Museum in
Cologne and the SESC in Sao Paulo.
Musée de l'Elysée
18, avenue de l'Elysée
1014 Lausanne - Switzerland
Tél. ++41 21 316 99 11
Fax ++41 21 316 99 12