Miguel Rio Branco

Miguel Rio Branco was a freelance photographer and director of photography for movies when he embarked on documentary photography, and was soon noticed for the dramatic quality of his colour work. In 1980 he became an associate of Magnum Photos. Fascinated by places of strong contrast, the power of tropical colours and light, he made Brazil his main area of exploration. This volume includes a special introductory text by Germano Celant and a critical intervention by Walter Guadagnini. “The work of Miguel Rio Branco is shaped by his need for the magic of the image, which is the result of a moment of grace and naturalness in the human condition. Through his images, he seeks a solution that offers a continuity between life and photography. Indeed, in his photographs, the passions of life are not subjected to any purifying cleansing, but offer the observer the outward fabric of life captured from its dark side, where all the conflicts of a human and non-human reality end up. Every form surges into this reality and is reduced to debris, but also to primitive and pure energy.”— Germano Celant Text in English and Italian.