THE AMAZON FOREST LIGHT Petrella presents us his personal approach to human beauty in the Amazonian basin, making the everyday existence of these people a tribute to the beauty of all mankind. These photographs are the fruit of over eight years of work in various parts of the Amazonian basin. They are another way of telling about the existence of these peoples and cultures through art, through the vision that the photographer, -avoiding, as much as possible, any kind of anthropological intent - has constructed during this time. Knowing more about the peoples who inhabit those lands, about the indigenous person associated and bound to this landscape through a pact of convenience and subsistence in the complex and fragile ecosystem that has changed so much since the arrival of the first Europeans five centuries ago – five hundred years of conflicts, of living together of the mixing of people and cultures – will give us more criteria to judge by when observing these works. In any case, we can also choose to approach these photographs without any preconceived ideas and just look at them and admire their formal or compositional elements, as if they were still lifes or landscapes. The visual is always astonishing, and memory based on the visual, being freer than reason, will allow us to randomly associate them with our own particular experiences. We choose how we want to approach the image, with more information or without it. The inhabitants of high Xingu, Tocantins, or even of the Amazon River – it doesn’t matter – are presented to us as proof of presences somewhere that is foreign to us. And thanks to the petrifying capacity of photography, one could say that they look at us like paintings that observe us from the wall with penetrating stares, clinging to reality in a refusal to disappear, in order to remind us that they exist. Perhaps, due to the power of images, these photographs act as the picture in the Walpole story, about the ancestor who leaps out of the picture frame and down to the ground with a grave, sad air. Like him, instead of announcing terrible fates, they stir the viewer’s sensitivity and, in addition to giving us aesthetic pleasure, they also help us preserve the Amazonian ecosystem, without which they could not exist.
Museu Valencià de la Il·lustració i de la Modernitat - MuVIM Calle Quevedo, 10 Valencia
Del 12 de abril al 26 de mayo de 2012 Accés / Acceso: MuVIM - València Autobussos / Autobuses EMT: Línies 5, 60, 62 (Guillem de Castro, 8) Línies 9 , 11, 27, 61, 71 (Quevedo, 10) Metro: Línies 3 (Estación Xàtiva) Línies 1, 2 (Estación Plaça d’Espanya) VISITES GUIADES De dimarts a diumenges, amb reserva prèvia. Reserva al 963 883 730 Activitat gratuïta VISITAS GUIADAS De martes a domingos, con reserva previa. Reserva al 963 883 730 Actividad gratuita
GALERIA PARALELO São Paulo - BRASIL
FOTOGRAFIA DE RODRIGO PETRELLA VIDEOARTE DE BANHI-RE KAYAPÓ
LA LLUM DE LA SELVA AMAZÒNICA LA LUZ DE LA SELVA AMAZÓNICA
THE AMAZON FOREST LIGHT