release of Vincent Catala’s book L’île Brésil (Brazil Island), published by Dunes
To mark the release of Vincent Catala’s book L’île Brésil (Brazil Island), published by Dunes, Galerie VU’ is organizing an exhibition from Thursday, October 2 to Saturday, October 18.
A book signing by the author, will be held on Wednesday, October 1, starting at 6:30 p.m.
Vincent Catala’s photographs do not coincide with the classic, even official, representations of Brazil. The bright stereotypes of joy, rhythm, exoticism, prosperity, or, conversely, misery that surround these discourses ignore the face of the country that the artist presents in his images. And that is where their strength lies.
Île Brésil is the result of a long-term experiment. The decisive moment here is a slow and elaborate construction that is intimately intertwined with the life of the photographer, who has been living in Brazil for 15 years. Over the past decade, he has patiently examined the three main environments in which he has put down roots. The first is located in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro, a suburb far removed from the images usually associated with Rio. The second takes place in Greater São Paulo, the immense circular suburb of Latin America’s largest city. The third is set in Brasília (and its hinterland), a miniature and peripheral capital by definition.
By photographing the “infra-ordinary” of a world that has now become his own, Vincent Catala takes us to the anonymous margins of Brazil’s three main cities. Tirelessly explored on foot, by motorcycle, or by bus, these territories—neither poor nor rich, immense and sparsely populated—are spaces that can be found throughout Brazil, even though they are never shown. In these places without borders or centers, the feeling of isolation is not only geographical, but also subjective and mental. The metaphor of insularity seems omnipresent. One feels a sense of anticipation, perhaps of fatality. Like a moment frozen before the imminence of an eruption. What is it?
Between rigorous large-format photography protocols and instinctive wanderings, Vincent Catala captures the ambiguity of a continent-sized country where light illuminates as much as it obscures. The book condenses this decade of exploration into a form that reflects the complexity of the project. It is divided into three sections, echoing the territories traversed, complementary pieces of the same puzzle. Its structure invites free reading, restoring the expanded temporality and immensity of the spaces photographed.
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