Types

Types by Fernando Banzi. First edition (2019). First impression. Medium format hardback in new condition. One of 250 copies with a signed print tipped in to the rear endpage. No markings. This is a new book. Please see pictures. PayPal accepted, any questions please get in touch.

About Types

From death masks in the Middle Ages through to paintings in the 19th century. Also photography in the 21st century, portraits have been the constitution of both an intimate space and a space of appearance under social control. So, portraits make the face, a part of the body, into an object for individual and collective evaluation. They seek the composition and also unconcealment of the other, which is a form of control by the gaze. According to the philosopher Roberto Gambini**, author of “The Indigenous Mirror”, the native Brazilian man “was a mirror in which Jesuits saw the ugly side of their faces. They decided then to break the mirror”. This is where the Brazilian portrait vibrates: to resemble or to want to resemble someone… With great effort, recorded in photographic images in the country, in hidden studios, portraits were painted by dedicated artists invested in whitening mulattos, creoles, mestizos from diverse nations, migration and immigration processes which compose the country’s population. Through these portraits, one of the paradoxes of the formation of the modern Brazilian people is made visible. On the one hand, there is the invitation to confession and to the expression of affects. On the other hand, there is the confinement by refrainment, by appearance control and by the annihilation of emotions.

Related Links

More books by Fernando Banzi here.

More books by Editions Bessard here.