main exhibition / 7 sep 12 oct 2002
Claudia Andujar ©
The Manege is the largest location in the second part of the main programming. This part of 'Mundos Creados' is about Latin America in a broad sense, featuring work made by local as well as western photographers. In contrast to the first part in the Fries Museum, which is about constructed photography, here Noorderlicht shows photography that is mainly documentary in character.
Claudia Andujar gives us a glimpse of the rich culture of the Yanomami Indians of northern Brazil. For decades this Indian tribe has been prey to disasters. In the 1970s the tribe had to make way for a motorway that was being built across the Amazon region. Ten years later 40,000 illegal gold hunters invaded their territory. The labourers and gold seekers brought with them illnesses unknown to the Yanomami, adding disastrous epidemics to their troubles. Andujar devoted herself to the creation of a Yanomami Park, which finally was awarded by the government to the 11,000 remaining Indians in 1992.
The Swiss-born photojournalist Claudia Andujar emigrated to Brazil in 1956. In her very first encounter with the Yanomami she became fascinated with their lifestyle and decided to devote a probing photo essay to their complex spiritual and magical world.
Diana Blok was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, as the daughter of a Dutch diplomat and an Argentinean mother, and grew up in Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. After studying sociology in Mexico City she settled permanently in The Netherlands in 1974, where she devoted herself to photography. Over the course of the years Blok has shown frequently in The Netherlands, North and South America and Japan. Presently she also makes films and video installations, works together with diverse artists, and regularly conducts masterclasses at various art academies in The Netherlands and other countries.
The photo series AY DIOS arose from a commission from the Mondriaan Foundation to photograph for four months on Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire.
Since 1997 Trinidad Carrillo has been working on the series MAESTRO PAPAGAYO (Master parrot), a 'work in progress' in which she visualises her relation with persons and places in her immediate environment. Her intuitive manner of working transforms staged and everyday situations into powerful poetic images. In these photographs of great profundity and layers of mystic significance, fantasy and reality flow into one another.
Diego Cifuentes is the son of the most important Ecuadoran photographer, Hugo Cifuentes (also in this show). Diego appears to be following in the footsteps of his father, as the photography prizes he has received and the 1999 nomination as Latin American Leader for the New Millennium by Time Magazine testify. Nothing would give him greater pleasure than to be able to follow his father in photographing the world around him with an equally tender and friendly gaze. But he is more critical in character and his life is more painful and less rosy. This can be seen in his work: Diego Cifuentes's photographs are harder, more intense and more implicit. In this manner he reflects the world even as he experiences and sees it. In the recent LAS DELICIAS DEL INFERNO (Delights of Hell) that is a world full of lust and extreme isolation.
One of the most famous photographers from Ecuador is Hugo Cifuentes. He is considered as the most important pioneer in contemporary photography in that country. In the 1960s he was the co-founder of VAN, a group of progressive artists who in their autonomous work broke with the prevailing art tradition. After studying painting and draughtsmanship, in the 1940s Cifuentes began to photograph. In 1949 he received his first prize for photographic composition. Many further distinctions followed this, including the Casa de las Américas Award in 1983.
Gradually Hugo Cifuentes developed his own visual vocabulary, with humorous undertones. It was his manner of responding to the internal conflicts and other miseries that gripped Ecuador for many years. By seeing things from a different angle, Cifuentes added new layers to the often hard reality.
Christian Courrèges made 100 portraits in Haiti. He followed the same procedure one hundred times: around noon, when the light is strongest, in the shade. One hundred times Courrèges tried to get inside the skin of the Haitians, behind the mask, close to their soul. They look back proudly or suspiciously, with curiosity or dismissively; whether with a frown or a smile, always very penetratingly and intense. Yet Courrèges did not succeed in penetrating to their core. However close up he photographed, the eyes did not let him through. At the most the pupils of the eyes reflect his own silhouette. That was the border that could not be crossed.
Courrèges knew that would happen. As the Haitians say, and as the title of this photo series reports, 'only the knife knows the secret of the heart of the yam'.
The work of photographer, sculptor and filmmaker Mario Cravo Neto is closely linked with the culture of the region where he was born, Bahia, in the north-east of Brazil. In his photography he not only refers to the attainments of its Yoruba culture, but in his portraits and close-ups he shows the cultural, ethnic and racial mixture of the indigenous population. The powerful photographs are deeply rooted in both regional myths and the religious culture later brought by the Portuguese. In the selection of work shown here the emphasis lies on Cravo Neto's poetic work, in which sensual and spiritual aspects are in constant interplay with each other.
For years now Desiree Dolron has travelled around the world. Whatever corner of the world she comes back from, she invariably comes home with unusual reportages. This can be seen, for instance, in her remarkable book EXALTATION - IMAGES OF RELIGION AND DEATH, a project on religious rites in which believers have themselves crucified or beat themselves with whips until they bleed. A selection from this gripping photo series was shown last year during the Noorderlicht Festival 'Sense of Space' in the church at Feerwerd. During Noorderlicht 2002 in Leeuwarden Dolron presents the recent documentary reportage TE DI TODOS MIS SUEÑOS (I give you all my dreams, 2002), which she made this year in Cuba.
The presentation by Desiree Dolron is sponsored by Dekla and Luna-X.
Patagonia lies in the southern cone of South America, in the foothills of the Andes, on the border between Chile and Argentina. With only a disposable panoramic camera Rodrigo Gómez travelled through this almost impassable mountainous terrain full of extremes, that lies wedged between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The absence of any complicated technique gave him the feeling of being a part of this landscape, rather than of having to capture it with a camera.
With the aid of his simple apparatus Gómez reveals to us a spectacular vision of this world. While the photographs have a long, indefinite exposure time, in PATAGONIAN LANDSCAPES time seems to stand still.
In 1997 Marianne Gerber visited Cuba for the first time. The island wouldn't let her go. In Havana she quickly won the confidence of the young people - 'kids of this time' - and stayed in the midst of prostitutes, transvestites and homosexuals. Gerber was allowed to go anywhere, visited everything and photographed all of it, mostly on the street, sometimes in cafes, but also in friends' homes. SOBREDOSIS CUBA is an overdose of energy and intensity, visualising a stormy lifestyle arising from four stimuli: sex, rum, music and cheap cocaine.
With her straightforward photographs she gives us an extraordinarily concise image of a high-spirited young generation in the midst of the poverty of socialism-as-it-exists, commercial sex and a lust for life.
In the early 1960s the Hungarian-Dutch photographer Ata Kando travelled several times to South America. There she produced various socially engaged reportages on Indian tribes in the jungles of southern Venezuela. The territory where these Indians lived and hunted was increasingly threatened by the exploitation of the forests. Kando's photographs were shown numerous places in Europe and America. Their exhibition contributed to the international struggle against the repression of the indigenous peoples in South America. Noorderlicht is showing a selection from this series.
In 1993 Marcos López stepped over from black and white to colour photography. It appears to have been a signal step in his oeuvre. He not only left behind the stereotypical social-documentary style of very contrasty images and dramatically accentuated dark background areas, but also broke definitively with his own austere and melancholy attitude to life.
Presently López has turned his camera to the popular acquisitions of American culture with which Argentina has been flooded over the past decades. Despite the drastic transition to bright colours, López's social-critical attitude remains. The Pop Art-like photos have an ironic undertone through which the staged scenes and overstated gestures contrast strongly with the present economic crisis in which this South American land finds itself.
Since 1990 Javier Silva Meinel has been studying the life of various populations in the Andes. A first visual investigation into the ritual customs in this far-flung South American mountain region resulted in the book EL LIBRO DE LOS ENCANTADOS. At the moment Silva Meinel is working on a follow-up with a series on pilgrimage sites in the uplands around the city of Cuzco. In absurd images full of rage, grief and merriment he investigates the similarities and differences among the mysterious beliefs of the indigenous people.
The installation by Adriana Miranda shown here contains work from three series. Together they deal with the threat that man forms for nature. Through our activities animal species become extinct, the sea level is rising and an idealised, 'Arcadian' landscape still exists only in our imagination. The dominant position and violent attitude that humans take with respect to the natural environment has irrevocable consequences for mankind itself.
In the self-portraits from the series LAS LEYES DE LA OPTICA (Optical laws) only Miranda's shadow is to be seen, spreading over the landscape like a dark shade. In OBJETOS VIVIENTES (Living objects) she photographs animals in the same manner as people would be portrayed: with carefully planned lighting and an eye for details, close-ups and facial expressions.
Eustáquio Neves storms the shrines of Brazilian society in his photography. Central to his work is the history of African slaves, from their arrival in Brazil to their incorporation in the society. However, THE Brazilian society does not exist; it is still marked by a great chasm between the rich and poor and the cultural backgrounds of the various population groups. Neves reveals that in social-critical photo works, which often consist of multiple layers, and for which he often manipulates both the negatives and prints.
In addition to these strongly symbolic and political photographs, in a number of projects Neves investigates aspects of Brazilian identity more directly. For instance, in the series FUTEPOOL he illuminates the reality behind the almost mythic image that looms up for many when Brazil is spoken of as a football giant. The national sport flourishes primarily in surroundings on the edge of society and in a climate of urban violence.
When Annette den Ouden left in 1990 for her first photographic trip around the world, she travelled light in order to more easily make contact with 'normal' people. These 'normal' people however don't seem to exist. On her many journeys Den Ouden primarily met extraordinary natives, people of integrity who welcomed her warmly in their own small worlds. These natives are generally not aware of the increased pace of modernisation and globalisation that will probably swallow up their age-old culture and identity. Rather than learning from what the colonial past brought about, today ancient peoples are still disappearing as a result of land reclamation, in the name of God or progress, or simply as a result of our curiosity - because an important cause of death among native peoples is disease, for instance the flu, brought in by Westerners.
Here Den Ouden shows a selection from her photo series A GLOBAL TOUCH, a fleeting contact made with various population groups in South America and an encounter with several of the pure cultures that the earth is still blessed with.
Marcos Prado met the charcoal workers for the first time in 1991. The overwhelming image of the heavy physical labour with which the fuel for iron and steel factories is produced would not let him go. For seven years Prado travelled from Minas Gerais on the east coast of Brazil to deep in the Amazon jungles in order to trace the story of these workers. Fathers and sons often work and live generation after generation under miserable circumstances. Children have no perspective of another future than following their fathers in the charcoal industry.
Prado was able to catch both the hard reality of their existence and their dignity in impressive images and probing portraits. THE CHARCOAL PEOPLE OF BRAZIL (1999) is a severe indictment against slaver, child labour and the destruction of the rain forests of Brazil.
Last year Claudio Pérez made the series EL MURO DE LA MEMORIA (Wall of remembrance, 2001), with images of political prisoners who disappeared during Pinochet's dictatorial regime. For the project LA HUELLA PERSISTENTE (Stubborn traces) he photographed the torture chambers, as the police left them after the fall of the dictatorial government. The bodies are gone, but countless other vestiges remind one of the dead, missing and tortured. Pérez recorded these traces as they remain behind on the doors, windows, walls and in hidden corners. They are the ineradicable marks of a black page in Chilean history - vestiges that the Chileans indeed still perceptibly carry with them.
Argentina is in a sense the most distant country of Europe. It perhaps lies in South America, but in terms of disposition it shows great similarities with Western Europe. Guus Rijven observed this when he travelled in that South American country for three months. He wore three hats on this trip - first as a photographer, whose job it was to shoot attractive and informative pictures; second as an artist, who freely interpreted the events under way and on the horizon in black and white, square, middle format; and finally as a writer/journalist Rijven used the subjects of the observer/photographer as the basis for formulating texts, in the manner of the interpreting artist. Three-in-one, they got behind the facade of Argentina. The visions were collected in the book HET GAT IN DE HORIZON (The hole in the horizon, 2002), from which the selection shown comes.
For 20 years Cristina García Rodero was engaged in an anthropological and artistic study of the folk traditions of Spain. It is the most famous project of this photojournalist, recorded in ESPAÑA OCULTA (Hidden Spain, 1989) and other sources. In recent years however she has left the land of her birth and travelled around the world in search of other cultures with their own traditions.
Over the last four years García Rodero visited Haiti a number of times. There she investigated the collective rituals of the voodoo cult. In this way she tried to penetrate into the religious experience of the people. The result was a series of expressive portraits and moving scenes, flanked by some engaging documentary observations. RITUALES EN HAITI (2001) was shown for the first time last year at the Venice Biennale. Noorderlicht shows a selection from the series.
Last winter Anne Senstad travelled across Cuba from its capital Havana in the northwest to Guantanamo in the poorest, southeastern region, where recently the United States has been holding the Taliban fighters. On her way Senstad investigated the cultural identity of this Caribbean island, where Spanish occupation, the slave trade, revolution, trade embargoes and the present prison camp have left their mark. She found traces of this complex history and contemporary reality in the lives of the Cubans themselves. These are reflected in her socially engaged portraits, cityscapes and close-ups.
Before Anoek Steketee got the chance to travel to Cuba in January 2002, she was occupied primarily with scene photography for various theatre companies. This background was the starting point for her autonomous work in the streets of Havana. Steketee asked passers-by to act out an imaginary film scene on the spot, one in which they themselves played a role. From this came intense portraits on the boundary between reality and fiction.
Despite the democratic revolution in 1995, the situation in Haiti has not improved, and it remains one of the poorest countries in the world. The grinding poverty, expanding slums and the flow of people from the countryside are the primary causes of Haiti's swiftly growing crime problem. The legal system, with underpaid and corrupt judges, is not up to coping with it, and in the meantime the prisons are overflowing.
Bruno Stevens photographed the atrocious situation in two Haitian prisons, the main institution, the Penitencier National, where more than 1600 prisoners have to share 900 beds, and Fort National, the only prison for women and children in Haiti, where two-thirds of the prisoners are still awaiting trial. While family members and several aid organisations try to alleviate the worst suffering, reforming the judicial system is no priority for the government.
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