MARIO CRAVO NETO

The work of Cravo Neto, from Bahia, features an emotional complicity with the portrayed object. His deep knowledge regarding the universe that he depicts allows him to create images that combine technical and formal orthodoxy and strong emotional overtones. Well-known for the unique perspective with which he portrays Afro-Brazilian religiosity, here Cravo Neto presents his first installation conceived for video, a sign of a new phase in his work. The name of the piece is associated with a dream in which “Exu”, the “orixá” who carries messages, looks at the world from above. The piece evokes the sea, the light of open spaces, and the history of the Solar do Unhão building, an old colonial complex made of a “casa-grande” (master’s house), and a “senzala” (slave house). In this piece, the sea is a passage between two worlds, Brazil and Africa. “The photography of Mario Cravo Neto should not be seen as an exercise in technical expertise. It is a vehicle that he uses in order to materialize ideas, views, and arrangements of reality. We must not attach ourselves to formal principles if we are to appreciate his work, despite the dexterity with which he creates images that seduce us, either by a sensuousness that makes them deliciously tactile, or by a particular solemn feel of the portrayed object”, says curator Solange Farkas.

Cravo Neto was born in 1947 in Salvador, where he resides. He began experimenting with sculpture and photography at age 17. In the sixties, Cravo Neto studied photography in Brazil, Italy, and the United States. From the mid-seventies on, he turned his attention to studio photography. Cravo Neto took part in Biennales in São Paulo, Havana e Lyon.


Somewhere over the rainbow | Salvador, 2005