Paris
Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain
16 Jun → 13 Sep 2020
From Tue to Sun 11 am to 8 pm. Nocturne Tue until 10 pm. Closed on Mon.
Rare are the works as political as they are artistic as those of Claudia Andujar. Marked personally by the Shoah, she immigrated to Brazil in 1955 where she became a photojournalist. She met the Yanomami Indians, natives of the Amazon, in 1971. This encounter will become the subject and attachment of a lifetime. In order to give a vision to their life and culture, she moves away from the documentary style. Through various techniques, she translates what she perceives of their shamanic experience; she makes intimate portraits in chiaroscuro; she even makes them draw pictures of their metaphysical universe. Her work turns to pure activism when the Brazilian government, which opens the transamazonian road, provokes the destruction of the Yanomami communities through deforestation, epidemics, and the dismantling of reserves. Photography becomes a pillar in this political struggle, which alone matters. With numerous unpublished documents, the exhibition explores Claudia Andujar's contribution to the defence of Yanomami rights and to photography.