| Dates: | born 1946
| | Biography: | 1946 Born in Canary Islands, Spain.
Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1999 Fundacion La Caixa, Barcelona
1998 London Projects, London
Galeria Camargo Vilaca, Sao Paulo
1997 Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia,
Salvador, Brazil
1996 Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de
Janeiro
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1999 Amnesia, The Contemporary Arts
Center,
Cincinnati, Ohio; Biblioteca Luis Arango,
Bogota
1998 Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros.
Roteiros.
Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros: XXIV Bienal
International de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo
The Garden of the Forking Paths,
Kunstforeningen, Copenhagen;
Oslo; Helsinki Cor, Centro Cultural de
Light, Rio de Janeiro
1997 "Between the Eyes the Desert," In
Site '97, San Diego
1996 Prospect 96, Kunstverein, Frankfurt
1993 Arte Amazonas, Ludwig Forum,
Aschen; Kunsthalle, Berlin;
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de
Janeiro (1992)
1987 Latin American Photography,
Australian Center for
the Photography, Sydney
1967 IX Bienal de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo | | | Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | | Date of source: | 1999 |
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| | Description: | Miguel Rio Branco is a photographer
who documents the vivid colours and
textures of contemporary life in Brazil, in
contexts as diverse as abattoirs,
brothels and a gymnasium. (By
coincidence, two of these worlds exist in
close proximity: a brothel and an old
abattoir photographed by the artist
occupy adjoining buildings). Rio Branco
has on occasion made a point of
equating or at least comparing these
places.
All are sites where the experience of life
and death is heightened. Animals take
their final breaths on the abattoir floor,
while next door in the brothel the
prostitutes' clients pay for their own 'little
deaths'. These are scenes that mesh
well with the iconic images of Carnivale
and religious portrayals of ecstatic
martyrdom.
Rio Branco captures the intensity of life
and death through the materiality of his
photographs. By taking long exposures
he increases the depth of field and
saturation of colour. Sometimes this
means that the moving figure in the
composition is blurred, or even
transparent. In the Tate he is exhibiting
two bodies of work in juxtaposition. Blue
Tango comprises a grid of 20 images,
each 50 x 60 cm. This is a series of
photos taken of two boys kickboxing,
their skinny bodies splayed out in
dramatic and angular gestures to create
a veritable script of hieroglyphics or a
notation for a vivacious dance.
Facing these spontaneous images of the
street are a group of four large scale
photos, 1 20 x 1 20 cm each, taken in
the gymnasium. In these powerful but
unstable images figures sometimes
dissolve as a result of the long
exposures.
| | Description Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | Description Source Date: | 1999 | | Gender: | male | | Type: | person |
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