Page 109 - ARTE!Brasileiros #55

requests made to Jacir (transcribed in English and as written by Susie Linfield: “Documents of into an image that deserved to be seen. And just
and Arabic) and immediately by its side, the artist suffering are documents of protest: they show as he did when he walked the streets, he used
inserts color photos as a documentary update us what happens when we unmake the world”. the publicity image to question his realistic
of her mission. In some cases, such as Rizek’s, characteristics. He played with the image. He
she adds her own notes below the request. triBute | german lorCa [pages 66 to 70] created doubt, at a time when no one spoke of
“Go to Bayt Lahia and bring me a picture of my post-production, but still he disconcerted the
family, especially my brother’s kids. I have been THE RESTLESS AND viewer’s gaze. Aesthetic games, games of looks,
studying at Birzeit University for the past three allusions and quotes. He created and had fun. All
years, and I have not been allowed to go to Gaza TIRELESS LOOK OF this combined with new technical possibilities
and see my family. I have no permission to be in and the freedom with which he used to work.
the West Bank, as a Gazan, so I am confined to GERMAN LORCA And so it was also with his self-portraits and
Bir Zeit until I finish my studies”, asked Rizek. In artistic photographs.
her note, Jacir reports that “his family was so One of the great modern photographers But the city continued to enchant him
happy that I would be able to bring him lemons of our country, member of Foto Cine and, tirelessly, he continued to photograph
and strawberries from their land; so they took Clube Bandeirante in the 1950s, born in it. In the late 1990s he left his studio under the
me to their fields and we picked lemons and São Paulo, he left a legacy of more than responsibility of his sons and returned to his
strawberries for him. I also carried back ma’mul 70 years transiting through urban records, walk. In 2002 he performs an essay at Ibirapuera,
his mother made, and a pair of boots, two belts experimental or advertising photographs which he had photographed in 1954 and in 2009
and some nuts”. Four photographs show Rizek’s returns to the city center.
family, and his brother’s children, picking the Tireless, he is enchanted by post-production,
strawberries and lemons that Jacir cites. By simonetta persiChetti with the power to transform his images on the
Descriptions involve things we usually take computer, recreate them and revisit his archive.
for granted, as guaranteed: visiting our family, in almost all photographers there To discover the power of color for your artwork.
playing football, seeing our childhood home. is a flâneur soul, the pleasure of wandering Doing, redoing, reviewing, have always been
The latter being the case of Ibrahim. “Go to Jaffa through the cities, looking with attentive eyes his motto. And that’s why in 2016, at the age of
and find my family home and take a picture. As and making discoveries. The flâneur kept these 94, he decided to go to New York, after Moma
a refugee, I am denied a visit to my country by images in his memory, the photographer returns bought part of his images together with those
the Israelis, who control all borders, in defiance his impressions in a photograph. To narrate of other Brazilian modernist photographers,
of un resolutions”. When weaving her answer, everyday life, point out what deserves to be at a time of rebirth of this aesthetic. There he
the artist admits her failure to get what she seen, stop to observe small details, situations decided to resume an essay carried out in the
had promised in return: “After spending two for which no one would give a damn about. This 1960s and 1980s, more specifically in Central
afternoons in Jaffa, searching for the house, I is how German Lorca (1922-2021) parades his Park, already thinking about contemporary
could not find it. The street names have been photographs under our eyes. A watchful, critical post-production. His last exhibition took place
changed to Hebrew. I asked the people and and often ironic look. in 2018 at Itaú Cultural, in São Paulo, curated by
spoke with the four oldest people still living Born in 1922 - theoretically the year that Rubens Fernandes Junior and José Henrique
in Jaffa, but they could not remember where modernism exploded in Brazil - this paulistano Lorca, his son.
the house was. They remembered very well hailed from the neighborhood of Brás, son of German Lorca died at the age of 99 on
the family’s name and knew they were from Spanish immigrants, of restless walk and easy May 8, the day Moma in New York opened the
Jaffa.” In this piece, the part intended for the smile, knew the world by the photographs he Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography
photographic record is blank. saw in the press, in newspapers, in magazines. and the Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante, 1946-
“Yet it is just this translation, written out in clear In 1940 he graduated in accounting, a profession 1964 exhibition, of which he is one of the
language and then realized photographically, that seemed tight for him. He wanted to wander, authors. And he has left us more than 70
that for many is insurmountable. Getting photograph, walk through that city of the 1940s years of photographic experiences, of creative
from written description to photographic that was modernizing, growing. He wanted possibilities, of gazes that renew.
actualization can be easy enough for some, its reflexes, lights, narratives. And it was in
like Jacir, who have American passports. But for one of these tours that he made a first impact triBute | paulo mendes da roCha [pages 76 to 79]
other unfortunates caught up in the politics of the photograph in 1947: a protest against the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has been raging increase of trams tickets’ price in São Paulo. THE LAST GREAT
since 1948, when so many were exiled from their He was charmed by his record.
land, the terrain between text and photograph, Two years later he joined the Foto Cine Clube MODERN ARCHITECT IN
description and realization, represents an Bandeirante, which became known for bringing
unbridgeable chasm, an impossibility on modernity to Brazilian photography. It was at BRAZIL
which a complex of desire is built.”, writes the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante that names like
historian and cultural critic tJ Demos in an essay Thomaz Farkas, Marcel Giró, Geraldo de Barros After his death, arte!brasileiros recalls
on the work. “These pieces stage a perverse and Gaspar Gasparian started experimentalism, an interview with Paulo Mendes da Rocha
inequality between things and people. That breaking boundaries and bringing an image that in 2016, in which the architect made it clear
inequality is the ability of commodities to move played all the time with the European avant- that, more than a specialist, the architect
about relatively freely through global markets gardes, with surrealism, with photographic must be a thinker of the world, attentive to
and across national borders, whereas people techniques, besides being a center of discussion human needs and desires
are restricted physically and geographically. and dissemination of photography. It was in
People, not things, are denied entry into certain this environment that Lorca decided to devote
territories or nations, regimented in ways that himself entirely to photography. By marCos grinspum ferraZ
are politically instrumental to maintaining In his first images, the city of São
political bodies, economic groupings, and Paulo remained the main search. So little on an aFternoon in June 2016, a few weeks
ethnic identities.”, adds Demos. photographed in its immensity, very judged after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice
Where We Come From was carried out on its appearance. Whoever defines it as Biennale, Paulo Mendes da Rocha (1928-2021)
from 2001 to 2003, Moacir recalls that, the ugly doesn’t know it. Those who define it as received this reporter in his office, in downtown
following year, Jacir issued a note clarifying enigmatic feel attracted and seek in it some São Paulo, to give an interview to the magazine
that she would no longer be able to carry out way to understand it. It may be via music, verse, Brasileiros. It was one of the many international
the project, “I am no longer allowed to enter literature, but considerably, the image gives honors received by the Brazilian architect in
Gaza, and certain Palestinian towns in the West the best homage. Much has been shown, few recent decades - such as the Pritzker, Mies Van
Bank. Israel is relentlessly moving forward in the times it has been understood. der Rohe, the gold medal of the Royal Institute
construction of the Apartheid Wall which began Often defined as stone city, gray city, rain of British Architects (Riba) and the Japanese
in the spring of 2002. Palestinians with foreign and drizzle city. Beloved city, hated city. But Imperial Prize - that crowned his fences. 60 years
passports are increasingly being denied entry it was in its corners and nooks that Lorca of professional career. The award granted by
into the country by Israel at all border crossings discovers and rediscovers it. A city he has the Italian event, in fact, was just the pretext for
and are being forced to immigrate. Israel has always photographed. a long conversation on the most varied topics,
decided that ‘freedom of movement’ is no longer In the early 1950s, he opened his photographic from the architect’s perceptions about cities,
a right for American passport holders and has studio, moving away from Foto Cine Clube art and nature to criticisms of the construction
created measures to ensure this”, writes the Bandeirante to become a publicity photographer. of Brasília, to the concept of “housing popular”
artist in the note. Two years later he was the official photographer or “green architecture” and to the educational
Even if they alternate between different media of the 4th Centenary of the City of São Paulo. system in Brazil. Paulo made no concessions,
and fields - from installation to photojournalism In advertising, he took his keen, polite and he was forceful in his statements.
- the four works referred to in this article share always irreverent look. To perceive the strength Over an hour and a half of interview, the
the fact that they are documents of suffering, of trivial objects and make this apparent banality architect made it clear, once again, that
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