Statement by the photographer, Sebastião SALGADO
"What is it about this lifeless yellow metal that makes people leave their homes, sell all their possessions and cross an entire continent to risk their lives, bones and health for a dream? (© Sebastião SALGADO)
Background information
"After gold was discovered in 1979 in one of the area's rivers, the Serra Pelada awakened a longing for the legendary gold country 'El Dorado'. For a decade it was the world's largest open-air gold mine, where some 50,000 gold miners worked under inhumane conditions. Today, Brazil's gold rush is only the stuff of legends, kept alive by a few happy and many painful memories - and the photographs of Sebastião SALGADO.In September 1986 Sebastião SALGADO finally received permission to visit Serra Pelada - for six years Brazilian military authorities had refused him access. However, he was not prepared for the extraordinary spectacle that awaited him on this remote mountaintop at the edge of the Amazon rainforest. A huge hole opened up before his eyes, about 200 meters in diameter and just as deep, in which tens of thousands of scantily clad men worked like ants. Half of them carried sacks weighing up to 40 kilos up wooden ladders, the others jumped down muddy embankments into the cavernous gorge, bodies and faces ochre-colored from the iron-bearing earth they had dug out. When Sebastião SALGADO took these pictures, color photos dominated the glossy pages of the magazines. Black and white was a daring endeavor, but his series of photographs of the Serra Pelada gold mine led to a return to monochrome photography. In doing so, it continued a tradition that had been established in the early and middle years of the 20th century by masters such as Edward WESTON, BRASSAI, Robert CAPA, and Henri CARTIER-BRESSON. When Sebastião SALGADO's paintings arrived at the 'New York Times Magazine', something extraordinary happened: complete silence reigned. In my entire career at the Times,' recalled photo editor Peter Howe, 'I have never seen editors react to a series of images as they did to Serra Pelada's. 'Today, as photography is being appropriated by the art world and digital manipulation, SALGADO's portfolio has a biblical quality and an immediacy that gives his images something very contemporary. The mine in Serra Pelada has long since closed, but the bitter drama of the gold rush still jumps out at the viewer from each of these pictures.
Content
This book contains the complete 'Serra-Pelada' portfolio in large format reproductions and museum quality, a foreword by photographer Sebastião SALGADO, and an essay by Alan Riding. (publisher's text, © Taschen, 2019)
About the photographer, Sebastião SALGADO
Photo books by Sebastião SALGADO
- Ed(s)/Author(s)
- Alan Riding
- Format
- Hardcover with dust jacket, 25 x 33 cm, 208 pp., b/w ills., multilingual text: Germen / English / French