Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography and the Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante, 1946–1964
Edited with text by Sarah Hermanson Meister.
How a small photography club gave birth to modernist photography in Brazil
Published in conjunction with the first major museum exhibition of Brazilian modernist photography outside of Brazil, Fotoclubismo presents the groundbreaking creative achievements of São Paulo’s Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante, a group of amateur photographers founded in 1939 that is essentially unknown today to European and North American audiences. The vast majority of FCCB members pursued photography outside of their day jobs as lawyers, businessmen, accountants, journalists, engineers, biologists and bankers, but they were nonetheless quite serious about their artistic ambition. Their radical experimentations with process and form and their determination to distill inventive compositions from everyday life contributed to their esteemed reputation within an active international postwar scene—a status that has been all but forgotten.
This richly illustrated publication assembles a robust selection of photographs to introduce the FCCB’s photographic experiments to an international audience. Six chapters highlight individual achievements nestled between thematic groupings that suggest the breadth of the club’s talent. Curator Sarah Meister’s essay situates the FCCB within the broader contemporary art scene in Brazil as well as a dynamic network of photographers around the world, and offers fresh insight into the status of the amateur then and now. This is the first non-Portuguese-language publication to grapple with these photographs that were widely heralded at the time of their creation.
[Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography] Dismantles the narrative of photographic history focusing on an understudied chapter from the heart of Sao Paulo.
Art Newspaper
Gabriella Angeleti
Amateur hour turns into golden hour for forgotten Brazilian photo club.
New Yorker
Andrea K. Scott
A group of amateur photographers in São Paulo, Brazil, founded the Foto (later Foto-Cine) Clube Bandeirante. Its members—lawyers, scientists, bankers—took pictures of subjects, ranging from architecture to the natural world with an experimental rigor rivalling that of any avant-garde artist.
Blind
Miss Rosen
A restoration of a vital but forgotten chapter of art history
Bookforum
Striking modernist images..largely forgotten by art history.
Financial Times
Ariella Budick
History is not a static object or a scriptural text, but a constantly shifting compendium of experiences. The [book] offers tribute to freshly appreciated talent and a generation intoxicated with the magic of its moment. Even more important, it recognises the high (but widely denigrated) art of dilettantism.
Wall Street Journal
Richard B. Woodward
Experience the abstract beauty of these 60 amateur photographs from postwar Brazil...
New York Times
Martha Schwendener
Forge[s] the link between photographers doing it for fun and amusement and those trying to create a new and modern artistic statement.
Brooklyn Rail
Benjamin Clifford
Photography carried out solely for the love of the medium, with rare ambition and seriousness of purpose.
Hyperallergic
Julia Curl
While the photographs in Fotoclubismo are clearly in dialogue with the greats of the Western avant-garde, they make their own contributions to the medium.
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Roberto Yoshida’s nocturnal 1959 gelatin silver print, "Skyscrapers (Arranha-céus)," is reproduced from Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography and the Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante, 1946–1964, the catalog to Sarah Hermanson Meister’s eye-opening final exhibition as a MoMA curator, opening this weekend the Museum. Collecting the groundbreaking works of a mid-century São Paulo amateur photography club that has been essentially unknown to European and North American audiences until today, this volume is enlightening, provocative and straight-up delightful—in addition to having one of the most beautiful cover designs on our Spring 2021 list. A wealth of archival materials and documentation of the club’s activities from its inception in 1939 until 1965 rounds out a deeply researched essay and almost 200 duotone reproductions. continue to blog
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FORMAT: Hbk, 9 x 10.5 in. / 184 pgs / 200 duotone. LIST PRICE: U.S. $45.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $63 ISBN: 9781633450844 PUBLISHER: The Museum of Modern Art, New York AVAILABLE: 4/13/2021 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Fotoclubismo: Brazilian Modernist Photography and the Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante, 1946–1964
How a small photography club gave birth to modernist photography in Brazil
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Edited with text by Sarah Hermanson Meister.
Published in conjunction with the first major museum exhibition of Brazilian modernist photography outside of Brazil, Fotoclubismo presents the groundbreaking creative achievements of São Paulo’s Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante, a group of amateur photographers founded in 1939 that is essentially unknown today to European and North American audiences. The vast majority of FCCB members pursued photography outside of their day jobs as lawyers, businessmen, accountants, journalists, engineers, biologists and bankers, but they were nonetheless quite serious about their artistic ambition. Their radical experimentations with process and form and their determination to distill inventive compositions from everyday life contributed to their esteemed reputation within an active international postwar scene—a status that has been all but forgotten.
This richly illustrated publication assembles a robust selection of photographs to introduce the FCCB’s photographic experiments to an international audience. Six chapters highlight individual achievements nestled between thematic groupings that suggest the breadth of the club’s talent. Curator Sarah Meister’s essay situates the FCCB within the broader contemporary art scene in Brazil as well as a dynamic network of photographers around the world, and offers fresh insight into the status of the amateur then and now. This is the first non-Portuguese-language publication to grapple with these photographs that were widely heralded at the time of their creation.
