Sebastião Salgado

  • Sebastião Salgado, Institutional Partner: Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum

    Sebastião Salgado

    Institutional Partner: Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum

    For over four decades, Sebastião Salgado has photographed the world in all its complexity, dwelling for long periods on broad themes. For this exhibition, we have chosen some images from the main works he has already presented to the public in the form of books and shows. We open with his most recent major project, Genesis, an exploration of the people, animals, landscapes and seascapes that have so far escaped the wounds of modern development. We follow with Workers, where Salgado portrays those millions of men and woman who still work with their hands in an age when automation is creating new forms of production and threatening their very livelihood. He has also recorded victims of still greater misfortunes, from those enduring starvation in northern Africa’s Sahel region to those forced by poverty, natural disasters and wars to flee their homes in Migrations. Inspired by his childhood in his native Brazil, Salgado traveled the world to photograph coffee plantations and those laborers who, by picking, selecting and processing the beans, invite us to savor this captivating brew and evoke the Scent of a Dream. Finally, with images from Other Americas, his first important body of work, he captures the melancholic lives of the poor in the forgotten hinterlands of Latin America.

     

    By Lélia Wanick Salgado 

      

    Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum

     

    Located inside the North Third Ring Road along the Fu River in Chengdu, the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum of China Artistic Photography Society is the center of the Fuhe Photo Park, one of the largest photography theme parks in China.

    The Photography Park covers an area of 150 mu (approx. 10 hectares). The Contemporary Image Museum occupies 7,500 square meters, including specialized exhibition halls, a lecture hall, a library, and multiple public education spaces.

    As an cultural institution devoted to contemporary photography and image art, Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum works closely with noted photography institutions around the world to present high-quality photography exhibitions backed by in-depth academic research, and to provide artistic and aesthetic education to the general public.

    Zhong Weixing is the founder of the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum; Jean-Luc Monterosso ( Founder and former Director of the Maison Europeenne de a Photographie, and Elected Corresponden of the Academie des Beaux-Arts) is the current Director of the museum; Wang Qingsong is the current Art Director.

  • Sebastião Salgado, Blinded by sandstorms and chronic eye infections, this woman arrived to a refugee camp. From Sahel series, 1984. Giclee Printing, 90cm x 130cm. Courtesy of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum.

  • Sebastião Salgado, Workers emerging from a coal mine, From Workers series, 1989. Giclee Printing, 135cm x 90cm. Courtesy of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum. 

  • Sebastião Salgado, Equador, From Other Americas series, 1982. Giclee Printing, 180cm x 120cm. Courtesy of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum.

  • Sebastião Salgado, In the outskirts of Guatemala City, From Other Americas Series, 1978. Giclee Printing, 180cm x 120cm. Courtesy of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum.

  • Sebastião Salgado, Iceberg between Paulet Island and the South Shetland Islands, Weddell Sea, From Genesis series, 2005. Giclee Printing, 205cm x 150cm. Courtesy of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum.

  • Sebastião Salgado, The Zo’é women use the red fruit of the urucum to color their bodies, From Genesis series, 2009. Giclee Printing, 205cm x 150cm. Courtesy of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum.