For the first time in Europe, this exhibition provides a comprehensive insight into the photographic work of Brazil-based artist Claudia Andujar (b. 1931 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland).
As part of her activist commitment to the protection of the Yanomami, Brazil's largest indigenous ethnic group, she created her important series "Marcados" (Eng: "The Marked") in the 1980s. For the artist, these portraits were the beginning of a profound engagement with the culture of the Yanomami. In addition to the extensive series "Marcados", the exhibition presents photographic groups of works from the 1960s to the present. In 1976, for example, Andujar traveled from São Paulo to visit the Yanomami in the north of the country, documenting the journey photographically from the rear window of her VW Beetle.
The photographer's subjective perspective is also reflected in the images, taken from a helicopter, of São Paulo's seemingly endless modernist road network and the Yanomami's traditional round building in the Amazon, surrounded by lush vegetation. In this juxtaposition, Andujar draws a panorama of Brazil between city and nature. For the series "Rua Direita" she sat down on the street of the same name, a much-populated traffic artery in São Paulo, and photographed the passers-by with a wide-angle lens. The people photographed from an extremely low angle come physically close to her, but their faces and gestures express distance, astonishment, and defensiveness. In stark contrast to the intimate portraits of the Yanomami, these photographs point to the impact of urban life on the people.
Just prior to the coup that would usher in the country's military dictatorship, which would last until 1985, Andujar documented demonstrations in São Paulo in 1964 in the series "Marcha da Família", which were directed from a nationalist and conservative direction against the establishment of a communist government. Not least against the backdrop of the ongoing protests in Brazil and the country's recently announced climate targets, Andujar's work remains highly topical and explosive today.
Source and further information: http://mmk-frankfurt.en/exhibitions/exhibition-details/article/claudia_andujar_tomorrow_may_not_be_yesterday/?no_cache=1&cHash=e9a046e4dac2fbb77f6da52ad65a6ea3
