Thomaz Farkas (Budapest, Hungary 1924 - São Paulo SP 2011)
Photographer, teacher, producer and film director.
Thomaz Jorge Farkas Imigra With his family to São Paulo in 1930, where his father is a founding partner of Fotoptica, one of the first photographic equipment stores in Brazil. He joins Foto Cine Clube Bandeiranes (FCCB) in 1942, and starts exhibiting in national and international salons. In imported books and magazines, he learns the works of Edward Weston (1886-1964) and Anselm Adams (1902-1984), two exponents of modern American photography. In the 1940s, he photographed ballet companies, sports, landscapes and scenes from the urban daily life of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In 1949, he held the Individual Exhibition of Photographic Studies, at the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM/SP), and seven images of his became part of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) collection. In 1950, with Geraldo de Barros (1923-1998), he developed the project of the photography laboratory at the São Paulo Museum of Art of São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), where he teaches the following year. At the same time, he experiments in cinema, frequents the studios of the cinematographic company Vera Cruz, in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo, and begins correspondence with the Dutch documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens (1898-1989). He graduated in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo (Poli/USP) in 1953. From 1957 to 1960, he photographs the construction and inauguration of Brasília. After his father's death, in 1960, he took over the direction of Fotoptica, a position he held until 1997.
Between 1964 and 1972, he serves as a producer, sponsor and sometimes as a film and photography director. Documentaries about popular culture in the interior of Brazil in the project known as Caravan Farkas, which brings together filmmakers such as Eduardo Escorel (1945), Maurice Capovilla (1936), Paulo Gil Soares (1935), Geraldo Sarno (1938) and photographer Affonso Beato (1941). The films are awarded at festivals inside and outside the country, becoming a reference for national cinema. In 1969, he began teaching photography in the Departments of Cinema and Journalism of the School of Communications and Arts of the University of São Paulo (ECA/USP), where he develops a doctoral thesis on the methods of making his documentaries. Launched the magazine Fotoptica in 1970, with essays by Brazilian and international photographers, and inaugurated, in 1979, the Galeria Fotoptica, a pioneer in the dissemination and commercialization of photography in the country. From 1990 onwards, he joined the Deliberative Council of the Pirelli Masp Photography Collection. He took over the direction of the Cinemateca Brasileira de São Paulo, in 1993. In 1997, he launched the book Thomaz Farkas, a photographer and held the same name at MASP with works produced in the 1940s and 1950s. 2005, the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (PESP) inaugurates the exhibition Brasil e Brasileiros no Olhar de Thomaz Farkas, which presents, for the first time, colorful images taken in the 1960s and 1970s. The following year, part of these photos It is gathered in the book Thomaz Farkas, Travel Notes.
Critical Comment
With Geraldo de Barros (1923-1998) and German Lorca (1922), Thomaz Farkas is considered a pioneer of modern photography in Brazil. His images taken in the 1940s and 1950s are identified with the visuality developed by the European and North American avant-gardes in the first decades of the 20th century: unusual angles, close-ups, serial elements and geometric compositions. Modern artists want to show that photography is not just a mirror of reality, but also a technique that provides another way of seeing the world. Framing, light games and top and bottom views move away from conventional perception and sometimes bring photography closer to abstract painting.
In 1942, Thomaz Farkas joins the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirantes. (FCCB), where the emphasis of debates is to make photography a work of art based on the creative exploration of purely photographic means, and no longer through pictorialism. The defense of a photo-specific aesthetic is a central issue for Straight Photography, an American movement whose main representatives - Paul Strand (1890-1976), Edward Weston (1886-1964) and Anselm Adams (1902-1984) - These are important references for Farkas.
Almost always in black-and-white, his images combine formal research and historical testimony. In the variety of themes, there is an interest in visual aspects of their daily lives and, consequently, in everyday life in urban centers such as São Paulo, where the artist lives, and Rio de Janeiro, who visits frequently.
Street photos show how people dress and behave in public environments without neglecting the framing and rhythmic arrangement of forms. It registers the population in their daily tasks and in moments of leisure: the shoeshine boy working, the man in front of a newsstand, the movement in the trade roads, children playing and football fans at the Pacaembu stadium, in São Paulo. In addition, it documents emblematic moments such as the people of São Paulo celebrating the end of the Second World War (1939-1945) and, in the 1950s, the construction and inauguration of Brasília.
At the same time, he photographs sports scenes and companies national and international dance. In these examples, there is an interest in the design of the bodies in counter-light and in the movement that is sometimes frozen, sometimes blurred. In the ballet images, his attention is focused on the day-to-day of the artists, almost always portrayed behind the scenes. In the rehearsals, he seeks to reconcile the record of the action with the balance of the frame, as the bodies are shown neatly, so that they do not get confused with each other.
In the 1940s, Farkas is attentive to the transformation of the urban landscape, as Modern architecture that begins to gain momentum in downtown São Paulo. In the whole of his work, the details of buildings are the images that are closest to the constructive art in vogue in Brazil in the 1950s. The results look like geometric abstractions, but in them it is almost always possible to recognize the referent. Brazil, the artist combines social documentation with formalism. Among the iron structures photographed with the precision and balance of a concrete painting, it almost always inserts the figure of a worker. Focused on everyday life, in addition to constructions on site, it records the living conditions of workers and their families, their precarious housing and the commerce that is formed around the city, which is the icon of the country's modernization. Juscelino Kubitschek (1902-1976) and walking on the building of the National Congress translate the developmentalist ideology and the common belief at that moment that rural and archaic Brazil would finally reconcile with its modern and industrialized.
Farkas does not become professionalized as a photojournalist, but his work together demonstrates that he rarely leaves the documentary function of photography in the background. In the 1960s and 1970s, the artist turned to the interior of the country and the emphasis of his cinematographic works became social. The objective of the films is to publicize aspects of popular culture on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and cities in the North and Northeast, which, at the time, remain unknown in other regions. schools. Made with their own resources, often with a handheld camera and direct sound, the films combine ethnography and improvisation and, therefore, are considered by some critics as the documentary version of Cinema Novo.
In 2005, Farkas shows for the first time a series of Color photos taken in 1975, during a scientific expedition to Rio Negro, Amazonas, and Salvador. These travel records stand out mainly for their descriptive and ethnographic character and denote, once again, the attentive look at cultural peculiarities, the way of life and work. He does not seek spectacular situations, seeks to capture the atmosphere of the places visited and prioritizes the natural tones and scenes typical. He found his way and produced a consistent photographic work. His accentuated geometric shapes, his strange angles of vision, breaking the silence of the shapes, his thought-provoking aesthetic vision point to one of the most renewing experiences of Brazilian photography."
Rubens Fernandes Junior
FERNANDES JÚNIOR, Rubens. Thomaz Farkas and José Medeiros, modern and eternal. typed text.
"I scan my memory and try to hit the focus in search of a word or image that defines the work and personality of Thomaz Farkas. Brazilian photographers, or as a tireless producer who made possible ideas and projects from a generation of filmmakers, without forgetting the editor of publications on photography. Farkas is a little that and much more, multiple artist, to be contemplated under various angles for being one of the most dynamic animators of the Brazilian contemporary visual scene. Through its lenses, the beauties and realities passed by the sertão and the reconcavo Bahia, the samba carioca, and so many other themes where Brazil and its people are seen completely. Farkas is a hunter of images of this and other lands, those that the common gaze does not reach. Clear, illuminated and, sometimes, raw, that make the spectator review his position in the cinema's armchair or in life".
Sérgio Sanz
SANZ, Sérgio. searching the memory. In: The Farkas Caravan: Documentary - 1964/1980. Rio de Janeiro: Banco do Brasil Cultural Center, 1997. p. 43.
Cerves
Bank Itaú Collection - São Paulo SP
Pirelli Collection/Masp of Photography - São Paulo SP
Thomaz Farkas Collection, Instituto Moreira Salles collection - São Paulo SP
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - New York (United States)
Individual exhibitions
1948 - São Paulo SP - Individual, São Paulo Museum of Art
1949 - São Paulo SP - Studies photographic, Museum of Modern Art
1997 - São Paulo SP - Individual, São Paulo Museum of Art
1998 - Havana (Cuba) - Individual, Galeria Cine Charles Chaplin
1998 - Paraty RJ - Thomaz Farkas, photographer, Casa da Cultura de Paraty
1999 - São Paulo SP - Thomaz Farkas: 39 years of photography, 20 years of gallery, at Galeria ADG. Sala Thomaz Farkas
2000 - Paris (France) - Le Bresil Brésilien, Galerie Debret
2000 - São Paulo SP - Return to FotoClube, Photo Cine Clube Bandeirante
2001 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Senac
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Thomas Farkas: Photographs Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Brasília, Instituto Moreira Salles
2002 - São Paulo SP - Thomaz Farkas: Photographs and Souvenirs, Maria Antonia University Center
2003 - Salvador BA - The Journeys I Saw, Galeria Acbeu
2004 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Museum of Image and Som
2005 - São Paulo SP - Brazil and Brazilians in the eyes of Thomaz Farkas: photographs, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo
2010 - Salvador BA - Thomaz Farkas - O Tempo Dissolved, Museum of Modern Art
2011 - São Paulo SP - Thomaz Farkas: a personal anthology, Instituto Moreira Salles
Collective exhibitions
1942 - São Paulo SP - 1st São Paulo Salon of Modern Art - Honorable Mention
1943 - São Paulo Paulo SP - 2nd Salão Paulista de Arte Fotografica, Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante - Second prize
1970 - São Paulo SP - 1st Exhibition of Journalistic Photography, ECA/USP
1994 - Curitiba PR - 4th Week of Photography City of Curitiba
1996 - São Paulo SP - 6th Pirelli Collection/Masp Photography, São Paulo Museum of Art
1997 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Farkas Caravan: Documentary - 1964/1980, in the Cultural Banco do Brasil
1998 - Nantes (France) - Plays: Balle Conduites
1998 - Nord-Pas-de-Calais (France) - Plays: Balle Conduites, Régional Center of La Photographie - Nord Pas-de-Calais
1998 - São Paulo SP - Plays: Conduites de Balle, House of Photography Fuji
1999 - Campinas SP - Trends in Contemporary Photography, Itaú cultural
1999 - São João da Boa Vista SP - 2nd Week Fernando Furlanetto Photography, Municipal Theater
1999 - Wolfsburg (Germany) - Brasilianische photography 1946 bis 1998, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
2000 - São Paulo SP - Documentary Photography, House of Photography Fuji
2001 - Belo Horizonte MG - Constructed realities: from pictorialism to modern photography, Itaú Cultural
2001 - Campinas SP - Constructed realities: from pictorialism to modern photography, Itaú Cultural
2002 - São Paulo SP - 11th Pirelli Collection/Masp of Photographs, São Paulo Museum of Art
2002 - São Paulo SP - Art and Football, MAM Higienópolis
2002 - São Paulo SP - CidadeProject / CidadeExperiência, Espaço MAM - Villa-Lobos
2002 - São Paulo SP - Collective, Centro Universitário Maria Antonia
2002 - São Paulo sp stock photos from the collection of the museum of modern art in sao paulo, museum of modern art
2002 - sao paulo sp - views and alumni: contemporary Brazilian photography from the Joaquim Paiva collection, Oca
2003 - Mexico City (Mexico) - Cuasi Corpus: Concrete and Neoconcrete Art of Brazil: Una Seléccion del Acervo del Museo de Arte Moderna by São Paulo and La Coléccion Adolpho Leirner, Museo Rufino Tamayo
2003 - Curitiba PR - Imagética, Photography Museum City of Curitiba
2003 - São Paulo SP - Labyrinths and Identities: Photography in Brazil from 1945 to 1998, Centro Universitário Maria Antonia
2004 - Porto Alegre RS - Olho Vivo: the art of photography, Santander Cultural
2004 - São Paulo SP - Photography and sculpture in the MAM collection - 1995 to 2004, Museum of Modern Art
2004 - São Paulo SP - São Paulo 450 years: the image and memory of the city in the collection of the Moreira Salles Institute, Fiesp Cultural Center
2004 - São Paulo SP - Fifty 50, Museum of Modern Art
2005 - Nice (France) - Septembre de la Photo 2005 : Aspect de la photographie Brésilienne Théâtre de la Photographie et de l'image
2005 - São Paulo SP - 15th Porto Award Photography Secure, Porto Seguro Photography
2006 - Liège (Belgium) - 5th Biennale Internationale de la Photographie et des Arts Visuels de Liège Brasil, Center Culturel Les Chiroux
2006 - São Paulo SP - MAM Na Oca, Oca
2006 - São Paulo SP - Veracidade, Museum of Modern Art
2007 - São Paulo SP - Fragments: Modernism in Brazilian Photography, Gallery Bergamin
2007 - Uberlândia MG - Veracity: Photographs from the MAM collection, University Museum of Art
2008 - São Paulo SP - Art for the Amazon: Art and Attitude, Biennial Foundation
2008 - São Paulo SP - MAM 60, OCA
2009 - Brasília DF - 30 years of photography, cultural box. Galeria Vitrine
2009 - Salvador BA Artist - 30 years of photography, cultural box
2009 - São Paulo SP - 30 years of photography, cultural box
2009 - São Paulo SP - Current photo panorama, Valu Oria Art Gallery
2009 - São Paulo SP - 3rd SP-Arte/Photo, Shopping Iguatemi
2010 - Belo Horizonte MG - Moderna Para Semper - Brazilian Modernist Photography in the Itaú Collection, Center for Contemporary Art and Photography
2010 - Porto Alegre RS - Moderna Forever - Brazilian modernist photography in the Itaú Collection, Rio Grande do Sul Art Museum Ado Malagoli
2010 - São Paulo SP - Ten years of the MAM Photography Collectors Club, Art Museum Moderna
2010 - São Paulo SP - Football in the collection of Instituto Moreira Salles, Galeria IMS - Unibanco Arteplex
2010 - São Paulo SP - 6th SP-Arte, Biennial Foundation
2010 - São Paulo SP - 4th SP-Arte/Photo, Shopping Iguatemi
2011 - São Paulo SP - Order and Progress: Constructive Will in Brazilian Art, Museum of Modern Art
Source: Itaú Cultural
