Orimoto and Magnum Rock Sãn Paulo

I was lucky enough to visit Brazil this month, and my trip didn’t end with the passion fruit caprihinis served on the beach. I couldn’t leave the country without checking out the photography offerings in Sãn Paulo—South America’s most populous and cosmopolitan city.

On an overcast Saturday afternoon on Paulista (Sãn Paulo’s equivalent to New York’s Fifth Avenue), I started my art tour at the Caixa Cultural building. Caixa—the Brazilian bank that sponsors cultural projects—was showing “Magnum, 60 Anos,” a retrospective in honor of Magnum Photo’s 60th anniversary, curated by Joao Kulcsar.

Among the photo mix of mostly documentary journalism were Steve McCurry’s classic Afghan girl (both the 1975 and 2002 versions), Eve Arnold’s portrait of Marilyn Monroe in a 1960 studio session and Elliott Erwitt’s hard-not-to-love pet portrait, “Felix, Gladys and Rover.” Of course, no Magnum showing would be complete without a gratuitous Martin Parr American flag on-the-ass shot.

View the entire Magnum gallery here.

A few blocks up from the Caixa building is the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (Sãn Paulo Museum of Art). After two floors of both classical and contemporary art (including inspiring painter Brazilian Candido Portinari), I moseyed down to the museum’s ground level.

The entire floor was devoted to Tatsumi Orimoto, a Japanese performance artist and photographer. His  series “Art Mama” is immediately intriguing, with documentary portraits of his elderly mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s and depression and is under his care. While some of the images are inevitably sad—his mother needing help bathing—Orimoto also brings out her sense of humor. One portrait invites her to pose in a cardboard box—and she does—while others show her in exaggerated shoes, eating soup or laughing with her friends.

Orimoto’s other series—in my opinion, less compelling—was Bread Man, where he tied loaves of bread to his face, and photographed himself among different people in different countries and cultures. According to the museum’s Web site: “The basic principle, according to Orimoto, is approaching the East and West: the bread as symbols to establish communication and integration between the two parts of the world.”

I see Orimoto's point with "Bread," but my vote's with his  "Mama."

 

Top photo © Jessica Gordon

Bottom photo courtesy of MASP © Tatsumi Orimoto

Recipe of passionfruit caprihini: passion fruit pulp, sugar, sweet rum.

Comments

[Flavio Coelho]

Next time you (or any pdnedu readers) come to Sao Paulo don't forget to visit the "Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo" - there are always good photography and art exhibitions available.