Geraldo De Barros

Geraldo De Barros (1923 - 1998)

One of the most interesting shows on at The Photographers Gallery for me was the Geralodo De Barros show  in the Wolfson Gallery.

The Photographers Gallery 'What Remains' 

The curator Isobel Whitelegg let us know lots about De Barros himself and also about the layout and structure of the room in which his work was displayed. It was interesting to hear why things had been done they way they had and lead me to think about this a lot more at the other shows I saw.

Gallery View

The room in which the works were shown was the only room in the gallery that is up to museum standard for vintage pieces. The room had air conditioning and heating in order to keep the room at the correct temperature for the maintenance of the pieces on display.  The colour on the wall was also added to give the space a museum feel as most museums have colour on the walls instead of plain white like usual gallery spaces. It gives the room an older feel although it isn't in a colour such as 'mushroom green' like most museum spaces.

The table space shown in the above image contains work that supports those hanging on the gallery walls. They're laid out in a less formal way allowing the audience to look at the different pieces and link them to those on the wall space.

Geraldo De Barros, Untitled, 1996 - 98
from Sobras

De Barros' photographic career was a short one that occurred over a long period of time. His photographic engagement took place in two stages, once at the beginning and once at the end of his career.
He discovered photography as a young painter and was soon using multiple exposures, camera rotations, over-painting and scratching of negatives to radically abstract his subjects.

I think the idea of experimentation within De Barros' work was what made me so intrigued by there show of work. It showed so many different ways that he went about his works, from the initial negatives to the prints which came from them. With this information you were able to piece together some sort of understanding behind his work.

Left: Untitled, Itu, Sao Paulo, 1949 from Fotoformas, Silver gelatin print
Right: Untitled, Italy, 1951 from Fotoformas, Silver Gelatin print 

After this period of experimentation he abandoned photography for over four decades.
De Barros only revisited this medium late in life following a series of strokes, when his daughter unearthed a box of negatives from his person archive.
In the last two years of his life he made Sobras (remains), this series resulted in over 250 intricate collages. to make these he used cut outs, shadows and different effects from their private domestic lives and incorporated them with the 'leftovers' from the Fotoformas series.

I think this is another thing that attracted me to De Borros' works. It's in parts personal and those images created from the last years of his life enabled him to create work and/or memories that could be left in his place.

Table of negatives and prints in the middle of the gallery space.

Information: The Photographers Gallery Catalogue 18th January - 7th April,
Images: http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/what-remains