The Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) announced the exhibition Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography, 1946 – 1964, the first major museum exhibition of Brazilian modernist photography outside Brazil. On display from March 21 to June 12, 2021, the exhibition will focus on the unforgettable creative achievements of the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante from São Paulo, a group of amateur photographers famous in Brazil but unknown in Europe and North America. The exhibition consists of over 140 photographs that are part of the MoMA collection; together, they present the extraordinary variety of records from this group, as well as providing valuable insights into the photographic aesthetics of the 1950s and reflections on the importance of the amateur photographer’s status today. The exhibition is organized by curator Sarah Meister and Dana Ostrander, curatorial assistant in the Photography Department.
The vast majority of the members of the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante were amateurs, meaning they engaged in photography without professional purpose or affiliation. Eduardo Salvatore, longtime president of the club, was a lawyer, and the list of professions among the members included industrialists, journalists, engineers, biologists, and bankers.
The members of the FCCB captured the abundant originality of contemporary Brazilian architects, and their attention to the fertility of abstraction as a creative strategy emerged alongside their peers in design, painting, and literature. The collection of these works provides an interesting context to explore the complex status of the amateur photographer, the rising trends of taste or judgment, and the local dynamics of race and gender.
The Fotoclubismo exhibition will be presented in two complementary and intertwined parts in the galleries: the monographic and the thematic. Each of the six sections of the exhibition features a monographic presentation of a photographer: Geraldo De Barros, German Lorca, Gertrudes Altschul, José Yalenti, Marcel Giró, and Thomaz Farkas. These sections begin and end with thematic groupings that suggest the breadth of the photographic community active in São Paulo at that time and offer additional context to the individual achievements.
Source: www.moma.org