"Maine Art Museums and Galleries Collaborate for First Time for Largest Photography show by Sebastiao Salgado"
2003-01-23 until 2003-03-23
Portland Museum of Art
Portland, ME, USA

In collaboration with five other Maine venues, the Portland Museum of Art is presenting a major exhibition of work by Sebastião Salgado, one of the worldís leading documentary photographers. Sebastião Salgado: Migrations - Humanity in Transition and The Children features more than 310 black-and-white photographs divided into five themes and displayed in six venues statewide: Asia, Portland Museum of Art; Africa, Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art; Latin America, University of Southern Maine Art Gallery and The Center for Maine Contemporary Art; The Children, Art Gallery at University of New England; Worldwide, University of Maine Museum of Art.

Since 1993, Brazilian-born Sebastião Salgado has visited more than 35 countries to document the worldwide phenomenon of mass migration - its causes, and its effects. These beautiful and disturbing photographs record images that capture the plight of the hundreds of millions of people who, in an elemental struggle for survival, have ruptured their ties with their native lands and traditions in search of safety, peace or a better life. A major traveling exhibition, Sebastião Salgado: Migrations - Humanity in Transition and The Children, is the first extensive pictorial study to document the global phenomenon of mass migration.

With nearly 100 million migrants in the world today, an unparalleled level of demographic change is profoundly challenging our most basic notions of community, nation, culture, and citizenship. Salgado's photographs focus on the plight of the millions of people throughout the world who have broken ties with homeland and tradition to seek a safer and more livable existence. His exhibition tells the story of how explosive population growth, environmental degradation, natural disasters, and economic pressures have made migration a phenomenon that affects every aspect of social, political, and cultural life. The exhibition surveys the following: the Latin American exodus to the United States; refugees from all sides in the former Yugoslavia; the Indians of Brazilís Amazon region; Jews leaving the former Soviet Union; migrants to major urban centers and victims of rural poverty throughout Asia, the Middle East, and Central and South America; refugees from civil wars in Africa; exiled Palestinians in Lebanon; and Vietnamese "boat people," among many other displaced groups.

Salgado's unique background and perspective work to give us a clearer picture of the enormous social and political transformations now occurring in a world divided between excess and need. He states: "[This] is a disturbing story because few people uproot themselves by choice. Most are compelled to become migrants, refugees, or exiles by forces beyond their control, by poverty, repression, or war...People have always migrated, but something different is happening now. For me, this worldwide population upheaval represents a change of historic significance. We are undergoing a revolution in the way we live, produce, communicate, and travel. Most of the worldís inhabitants are now urban. We have become one world: in distant corners of the globe, people are being displaced for the same reasons...wrenched from their homes, [they] are simply the most visible victims of a global convulsion entirely of our own making."

As Salgado acknowledges, these extraordinary images present viewers with no answers, but instead push us to confront the persistent questionsóthose that ask if being "informed" is sufficient, and whether or not we can affect the course of events, as opposed to remaining passive spectators. His photographs prod us to consider the necessity of a kind of active attention, what Richard Lacayo in Time described as "combination of eyesight and understanding...look plus think."

Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado has been awarded virtually every photographic prize in the United States, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, and Sweden. Trained as an economist, he began working as a photojournalist in 1973. His book An Uncertain Grace was published in 1990 to enormous acclaim, followed in 1993 by the epic Workers, and most recently by Migrations (2000). A recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, he has twice been presented with the Infinity Award for Photojournalism by the International Center of Photography. Salgado is based in Paris and has exhibited his work worldwide.

Exhibition organized, designed, and curated by Lelia Wanick Salgado with Amazonas Images and circulated by Aperture Foundation. Support has been provided to Sebastino Salgado by Kodak Professional, a division of Eastman Kodak Company, and by Leica Camera.

IMAGE:
Sebastião Salgado (Brazil b.1944)
The Planet’s New Metropolises, Djarkarta, Indonesia, 1996
© Sebastião Salgado.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of Maine

Other Important Exhibitions in United States