Sobre a exposição A Picturesque Voyage Through Brazil

“After the sensational success of the exhibition ‘Nous les Arbres’ at the Fondation Cartier, Galerie GADCOLLECTION is proud to host the first European solo exhibition of this series by renowned Brazilian photographer Cássio Vasconcellos. From March 11 to April 19, 2020, Galerie GADCOLLECTION will showcase 12 photographs most of them never released before.

The Amazon and the Atlantic Forest, today at the center of the climate crisis, are facing their potential future destruction. Cássio Vasconcellos, like his ancestor Ludwig Riedel (between 1826 and 1829) before him, takes on a double role. He is a botanic activist, describing the delicate and diverse nature of tropical ecosystems with an almost scientific precision. He is also an artist, illustrating the beauty and soft colors of the forest canopy. His peculiar photographic technique, reminiscent of the texture of paintings, magnifies the landscapes and the light that shines through them, inviting us in the unexplored depths of the jungle. At a time where the forest is burning, his work is a reminder of the importance of the Amazon basin for our survival. Its crucial mission is to showcase the majestic beauty and the fragility of the virgin forest.

Feet on the ground, camera in hand, his gaze invades the tropical forest depicting its lush beauty following the steps of his great-great-grandfather, Ludwig Riedel (Berlin, 1761 – Rio de Janeiro, 1861), the botanist of the Langsdorff Expedition, organized by Baron de Langsdorff, a German- Russian naturalist and explorer under the auspices of the Russian czar.

“I remember my grandmother telling the family about the exploits of our ancestor botanist Riedel”, he recalls. With the aim of documenting his findings, the Baron also hired painters Rugendas, Taunay and Hércules Florence, who worked on the invention of the photographic process in Brazil at the same time as Niepce in France. These groups of foreign intellectuals became known as the travelling artists (in Portuguese, artistas viajantes), since they documented what they saw in watercolor later transformed in prints. Cherished by art lovers such as Vasconcellos, their romanticized paintings and detailed prints of Brazilian nature and local customs is a visual anthropological highlight of Brazil’s 19th century socio-art history.

In A picturesque voyage through Brazil, Vasconcellos also renders another homage in the series’ title. It is to the Count de Clarac, a Frenchman who also came to Brazil as a travelling artist and produced a watercolor, Forêt vierge du Brésil (1816-1819), shown at the Paris Salon of 1819, from which an etching was made. The magic and mystery of the tropical land that so captivated these men is reproduced with the same intensity and finesse in Vasconcellos’ images. They reveal a quasi-lithographic process in its minute details bathed in magnificent penumbral light in the heart of the tropical forest that so fascinated his ancestor and, now, his great-great-grandson photographer.

LA GALERIE GADCOLLECTION

Ever sensitive to photography, Gad EDERY worked as an international trader for 15 years before creating his gallery in 2008. This passionate collector has worked with the greatest contemporary photographers and is the exclusive representative in Europe of Mitch DOBROWNER, Ormond GIGLI, Douglas KIRKLAND, George TICE or Stephen WILKES.

At the same time, Galerie GADCOLLECTION is one of the most important galleries devoted to vintage space photography. From the epics of Buzz ALDRIN to Neil ARMSTRONG conquering the Moon, Gad EDERY has a large set of images that offer a fascinating journey into space.

Galerie GADCOLLECTION regularly offers exposure to a young photographic scene, showcasing contemporary artists still unknown to the general public such as Alessandro PIREDDA, Florin FIRIMITA, Stéphane AISENBERG, Candice NECHITCH…”