The Kunstfoyer in Munich shows until June 30, 2021 the exhibition Sebastião Salgado. EXODUS - the work with which the photographer urgently campaigned for social justice and peace, long before he became known to a broad public with the GENESIS project and Wim Wenders' film "The Salt of the Earth" (2014).
In the photographic series EXODUS, Salgado documents the dark side of modern times: the ruthless exploitation of nature and the fate of millions of people on the run, struggling to survive in the most undignified conditions. Experiencing this great misery robs Salgado of the will to live. Debilitated and disillusioned, he stopped taking photographs for several years. His wife Lélia Salgado, however, develops the idea of reforesting the rainforest. In 1998, they founded the Istituto Terra and have since replanted more than 2.5 million trees. Paradise, as Salgado knew it from childhood, is reborn. With the return of nature, they draw hope and decide to show people that it is worthwhile to get involved. The idea for the photographic project GENESIS (exhibition worldwide / at the Kunstfoyer Munich 2015) is born. A much more optimistic view of the same earth that Salgado has witnessed for so long as injured and destroyed.
In 2019, he will receive the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. The Börsenverein honors Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado "as a visual artist whose photographs call for social justice and peace and lend urgency to the global debate on nature and climate protection. At the same time, with his Istituto Terra, Sebastião Salgado has created an institution that contributes to the revitalization of biodiversity and ecosystems. With his photographic work, which has been published in numerous exhibitions and books, he focuses on people uprooted by wars or climate catastrophes as well as those who are traditionally rooted in their natural environment. In this way, Sebastião Salgado succeeds in sensitizing people worldwide to the fate of workers and migrants and to the living conditions of indigenous peoples.
By describing his stirring, consistently black-and-white images as a "homage to the greatness of nature" and by making the desecrated earth as visible as its fragile beauty, Sebastião Salgado gives us the chance to understand the earth for what it is
is: as a habitat that does not belong to us alone and that must be preserved at all costs."
The EXODUS exhibition was curated by Lélia Wanick Salgado. On display are 170 large-format photographs in black and white. In addition, the awarding of the Peace Prize to Sebastião Salgado on October 20, 2019 in the Paulskirche and the photographer's message of thanks will be brought to life as a ZDF film document.
Due to Covid19, the EXODUS exhibition can only be visited with online tickets. These can be booked on the website of the Versicherungskammer Kulturstiftung.
Church Gate Station, Bombay (Mumbai). India. 1995. © Sebastião Salgado
till 30. June 2021
Versicherungskammer Kulturstiftung
Kunstfoyer
Maximilianstraße 53, 80538 München
