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 twenty 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, 120 x 120 cm each, taken in the gymnasium. In these powerful but unstable images figures sometimes dissolve as a result of the long exposures.
[LESS]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 twenty 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, 120 x 120 cm each, taken in the gymnasium. In these powerful but unstable images figures sometimes dissolve as a result of the long exposures.
