Installed in Brazil for more than ten years, Ludovic Carème took back the route of those he photographed. He has begun to paint a portrait of the small favela of Agua Branca, in the heart of Sao Paulo, to finish his journey in the Amazon, from where those who dreamed of finding happiness in the megalopolis had to be disillusioned in other favelas. From the end of 2008 to the beginning of 2011, he went regularly to Agua Branca, accompanied and introduced by the wonderful Brito guide in these wooden booths, built over the sewers, he photographed, in black and white, close up vibrant and square, those who accepted his presence and gave him their face. This is also where he photographed, in full foot, the workers – the vast majority of people – going to dawn at the bus stop that will bring them to their jobs. There, too, he saw the social services of the city accompanied by the police destroying houses under a thousand pretexts, including traffic – real but marginal – some police are accomplices.
In 2012 he framed the large buildings of the center, modern and derisory ruins, revolting in a city where thousands of homeless – he photographed for two years, from 2013 to 2015 – make even more intolerable these empty homes transformed in works of urban art by daring “Pixadores”.
By abandoning the city for the deepest part of the Amazon from the end of 2015 until the end of 2017, continuing his work as a portraitist and complementing it with views, often sensual, of the forest but also of clear observations of deforestation or small still lifes found in interiors, he continues the sensitive development of a documentary photograph with solid classical foundations.
Dignified portraits and a little sad, a lush forest and the monstrous attacks of man, destroyed houses, the double movement that leads the poor to cities everywhere and forbids them centers, everything is there, with restraint, with a form of poetry too. And this evidence, no offense to the singer, that misery is not “softer in the sun.” Even less so in today’s Brazil, more and more violent for those he marginalizes.
Christian Caujolle
Ludovic Carème : Brésils
from June 30 to September 29
La Friche Belle de Mai
The Tower-Panorama, 5th floor of the Tower
41 Rue Jobin
13003 Marseille, France
http://www.lafriche.org/fr/agenda
