Sebastião Salgado: the name alone is enough to tell us that, yes, we really have to go and see his incredible Amazon?
We bring you in the gallery more than a dozen of the shots of the great Brazilian photographer, a selection of those on display from 1 October to 13 February at the MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome, the only Italian stage of the project Amazon which, in collaboration with Contrasto, will travel around the world (London, Sao Paulo, Avignon, Rio de Janeiro).
The exhibition presents over 200 photographs, it is therefore immense. And the rest is immense, incredible the work behind it. It is Salgado himself who tells it: «It is the result of seven years of human experience and photographic expeditions carried out by land, water and air. From the moment of its conception, with Amazônia I wanted to recreate an environment in which the visitor felt enveloped by the forest and could immerse itself both in its luxuriant vegetation and in the daily life of native populations. These images want to be the testimony of what remains of this immense heritage, which is in danger of disappearing. In order for life and nature to escape further episodes of destruction and depredation, it is up to every single human being on the planet to take part in its protection ».
He thought about it Lélia Wanick Salgado, travel and life companion of the great photographer (more: inspiring muse, companion, soul mate and much, much more, just see them next to each other) to curate this monster project: a hymn to the beauty of the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants and a desperate invitation to protect it.
“Salgado has accustomed us to strong feelings: his eyes have forged our conscience, his images make us indignant, dumb but also rediscover the wonder – comments Giovanna Melandri, president of the MAXXI Foundation -. With the exhibition, we want to help spread his message: this human, natural and cultural treasure must be protected at all costs ».
PHOTOGRAPHIC ACTIVISMO
Sebastião Salgado, now 77 years old with the desire to do more, after a successful career as a photojournalist, is a true activist, as evidenced by the enormous reforestation work (we are talking about 2 million trees) that, with his wife, he carried out in Brazil , in the family possessions. From this personal vital impulse it was born in 2003 Genesis, perhaps his best known and most successful photographic project: he managed to immortalize, in places not yet touched by man, the powerful beauty of a primordial nature. A project presented over the years in dozens of museums and institutions, which has enchanted millions of visitors from all over the world.
His photography is epic, almost messianic. But – let’s never forget – with your feet firmly planted on the ground: in this Amazônia Sebastião Salgado returns to current events, returns to shake our consciences. He makes pure (and extraordinary) photographic activism.
THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition at MAXXI is divided into two parts. In the first, the photographs are organized by landscape setting: from the Overview of the forest in which the Amazon seen from above is presented to the visitor (crazy!) a The flying rivers, one of the most extraordinary and at the same time least known features of the rainforest, namely the large amount of water that rises towards the atmosphere. All the power, sometimes devastating, of the rains is told in Tropical storms, while Mountain presents the mountainous reliefs that define the life of the Amazon basin.
In the end, The forest, once called «Green Hell», today to be seen as an extraordinary treasure of nature, and finally the Islands appear in the river, the archipelago that emerges from the waters of the Rio Negro.
Nature first, in all its purity: green, earth, water that Salgado renders in the perfect magic of black and white, with the infinite shades of light that only he can embroider around. Then comes the man: we are in the second part, in an evocative path that develops in spaces reminiscent of the “ocas”, the typical indigenous dwellings.
The gem: we are accompanied by an audio track composed by Jean Michel Jarre, inspired by the sounds of the Amazon (there are the rustling of the trees, the songs of the birds, the roar of the waterfalls). Here Salgado’s eyes focus on the different indigenous peoples.
To us who are always used to generalizing, to simplify, this extraordinary photographer demonstrates the variety and complexity of the different tribes that inhabit the territory. We see members of the Awá-Guajá, the most threatened tribe on the planet (fewer than 500 left!) and even the Korubo, among those with less contact with the so-called civilized world. Other portraits of indigenous women and men are present in one of the two projection rooms, with the sounds of the Brazilian Rodolfo Stroeter to accompany us in the encounter with their gazes, while another video room focuses, with the music of the twentieth-century composer Hector Villa-Lobos on the theme of the forest.
You leave – if you manage to get out, because Salgado’s shots invite you to stay, to see them again – with the feeling of knowing a little better this fragile wonderful Planet of ours. And the desire to help him survive.
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