Portraits of the World in Black-and-White: the Work of Documentary Photographer Sebastião Salgado
Photographer Sebastião Salgado has
traveled the world with his camera for the past forty years, documenting its
beauty and its horror, its feats and its failures. He is a UNICEF Goodwill
Ambassador and one of the foremost social documentary photographers of our
time. Salgado imbues power into the landscapes, people and animals he captures,
elevating them to a near-sacred level. His images manage to be both quietly
dignified and biblically grand at the same time.
The current
exhibition of his work at Beetles + Huxley
offers selections from every part of his career, from photographs taken in the
1980s in Brazil and Ethiopia to selections from his recent extensive survey of
climate change around the globe.
His portraits of nature
evidence its epic power and immensity. Southern Right Whale,
Patagonia, Argentina (2004) captures a the tail of a whale
from very close range. With the sheen of water rushing over its smooth surface,
it almost looks like two massive ocean swells. Confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rovers, Arizona, USA (2010)
shows the rivers as small snakes cutting through the land, a broad view of
striped canyons, and a sky filled with an endless field of clouds. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska (2009) was shot from a
similar perspective as the last, but at a cant, resulting in the clouds and
peaks stretching infinitely. Bighorn Creek, Kluane National Park, Canada (2011) depicts the valley between two mountains,
with snow creating mesmerizing veins of inky black and bright white, like zebra
stripes.
Despite the majesty of his
images, Salgado doesn’t glorify the world. He shows its capacity for
darkness and neglect, too, by portraying the utter despondency on the faces of
Ethiopian citizens in the Korem refugee camp during the 1980s famine. Or as in Desert Hell, Kuwait (1991), which captures workers struggling with a
spurting oil well, he presents a reminder of the Oil Wars and our propensity
for greed. Salgado’s well-known photographs of the goldmine workers in Serra
Pelada, Brazil, are also included, another example of humans prodding the earth
for assets.
Salgado shows the world as
vast, beautiful and mysterious, more extraordinary than any place created in
fantasy or fiction. Viewing his work is a way to alight from our individual
lives and enter into a truly collective realm.
—Makiko Wholey
Sebastião
Salgado is on view at Beetles + Huxley, London, Oct. 8th–Nov. 7th,
2014.
