Rio Branco photographed two kids doing capoeira, a Brazilian martial art that includes elements of acrobatics and dance, performed to music. Rio Branco printed the photographs with strong light contrast, which makes the kids’ bodies stand out against the background. Notice how they balance and reach! Rio Branco called this series Blue Tango. Tango is a type of dance done with a partner. Look at the sequence of images to see how the action between the partners unfolds.
2022
Gallery label from 2022
In 1979 Rio Branco, a photographer and filmmaker, began to document the denizens of Pelourinho, a neighborhood in the historic district of Salvador, Brazil, that had fallen into disrepair during the 1970s. “I went into the zona,” he writes, “making portraits of the people there, which gave me passage into hell.” To create this grid of twenty prints, Rio Branco photographed two boys on the streets of Pelourinho as they practiced capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that is also a form of dance. He used a bluish tint and backlighting to create a cinematic atmosphere that heightens the drama of the boys’ choreographed gestures and silhouetted bodies.
2022
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Provenance
Unconfirmed date, Galería Camargo Vilaça, São Paulo
1997, Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York, and Caracas
2017, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Exhibition history
Museo Jacobo Borges, Caracas, Venezuela, Niños de la Calle, May 23-August 25, 1999
Museo de Arte de Lima, Lima, Perú, Diálogos. Arte Latinoamericano desde la Colección Cisneros, July 22-September 26, 2004
Museo de Bellas Artes de Santiago de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile, Diálogos. Arte Latinoamericano desde la Colección Cisneros, November 25, 2004-February 28, 2005
Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia, Diálogos. Arte Latinoamericano desde la Colección Cisneros, May 5- June 29, 2005
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