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Kristin Capp's Brasil as Good as the Greats

Time travel in Brazil. A book and two photographic exhibitions reveal in black and white the complexity that is this enigmatic tropical country.

 Salvador de Bahia, the unique bay of Rio de Janeiro, endless beaches, faces, forests, buildings, vistas of the city: Brazil is a reservoir of overwhelming beauty that has stimulated photographers' lenses for almost two centuries - from Pierre Verger and Marcel Gautherot, to contemporary photographers such as Salgado and now, Kristin Capp, an American living in Namibia, the author of a recent monograph dedicated to the country of the 2016 Olympic Games. 

'An indelible imprint on my mind,' thus Capp described the impression Brazil had made upon her senses in her book, Brasil. Here an absorbing world of unexpected and surprising sights which took eight years to research and photograph, reveals a complex country, beyond the stereotypes of carnival-football-beach, as photographed in black and white, exclusively, by Capp. 

''I shot in analogue, using a Rolleiflex medium format, and tried to avoid the cliches by allowing myself be guided through random encounters so as to capture a personal narrative, a type of photographic autobiography." The result is an expanded portrait of Brazil that is at the same time diffused and remarkably concentrated, in which even the most easily recognisable icons such as the Oscar Niemeyer buildings, appear more intimate in perspective, and also less obvious. 

After having worked as a street photographer for eight years, Brazil remains a mystery for me and a wonder. It is a fleeting temptress, infinitely complex, in which the intensity of nature, human beings, the surrounding and ever-present animal world combine to radiate and generate something similar to magic. 

Art critic, Paulo Venancio Filho remarked that the photographs by Kristin Capp have the ability to make us rediscover Brazil in an entirely unconventional and novel manner while at the same time, maintaining a connection with the classic photography of Verger and Gautherot, for whom the representation of an ethnographically diverse Brazil was key. 

Brasil by Kristin Capp is available by special order at Book Buddy Namibia for N$ 435.00. This article was originally written by Francesca Reboli for VOGUE Italia, ref.: Vogue Italia, Agosto 2016, n.792, pag.40 
http://www.vogue.it/news/vogue-arte/2016/08/12/rediscovering-brazil/  
Translated into English by Anya Links for Book Buddy Namibia.

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