Exhibition “50 years of the Carnation Revolution” by Sebastião Salgado and Lélia Wanick
In February this year, upon turning 80, Sebastião Salgado told The Guardian that he would be retiring from fieldwork to dedicate himself to his monumental collection of photographs. Less than three months later, Sebastião and Lélia Wanick launched the exhibition “50 Years of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal” at the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS) in São Paulo.
For Sebastião Salgado, Portugal of the Carnation Revolution was where he learned to construct a photographic narrative in practice. For us, learners and lovers of visual stories, the exhibition is a true lesson in history and photography. The exhibition is part of the “May of Photography” program at MIS, which includes six other exhibitions, as well as the screening of documentaries about photography.
Finally, my praise for Sebastião Salgado and Lélia Wanick’s work is not unreserved or without caveats. Just as in any popular process and any person, totality and contradiction unite, coexist, and move the being. While Salgado almost personally sacrificed to give visibility to oppressed peoples, he also used his voice to try to minimize the responsibilities of the company Vale in its socio-environmental crimes. He also verbalizes a profound disrespect for people whose only photographic means are the cameras on their mobile devices when he says and repeatedly states that with a smartphone one does not make photography. He also ignores the photographic work of the Amazonian peoples, who seek to build their own identity through their own daily documentation, when he claims that he is the only photographer documenting the Amazon in his last field project. But art and artists are inseparable elements and, with or without contradictions, the 50th-anniversary exhibition of the Carnation Revolution is impressive for its content, form, originality, and, undoubtedly, pioneering spirit after half a century of an inspiring journey.