Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Press Information: Linda Chenit assisted by Nathalie Desvaux tel 33 1 42 18 56 77 / 56 65 fax 33 1 42 18 56 52 e-mail [email protected] on-line images / fondation.cartier.fr
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Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest brings international artists into contact with theshamans of Watorik¶ (Windy Mountain), a Yanomami village in the BrazilianAmazon. The ambition of this exhibition is not to lapse into exoticism or pater-nalism, but to connect our conception of images and representations with thatof another culture, exploring how the traditional yet constantly evolving meta-physical world of the Yanomami echoes the various facets of the “savagemind” still at work in our society. This exhibition brings forth a radical other-ness in an endeavor to alter our perception and habitual modes of thought.
This exchange was organized in collaboration with the shamans of Watorik¶and Davi Kopenawa, their spokesman. The artists who travelled to theAmazon all stayed in the same Yanomami village, thus achieving unity of time,place and action.1 Others, also commissioned by the Fondation Cartier,worked with the materials produced in Brazil by the Yanomami.2 Finally, thereare several artists included in the exhibition who have had an interest in theIndians throughout their careers.3 All of them exposed their individual creativeworlds to the Yanomami concept of shamanic images, in an attempt to bridgetwo completely different worlds.
Consequently, Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest features neither tribal featherornaments, nor any “Amerindian” or “crossover” art. Nor is this an ethnologi-cal or humanitarian exhibition. Treating Yanomami thought on an equal foot-ing, this exhibition’s films, photographs, paintings, sculptures and videoinstallations offer a web of correspondences relating to the major themes ofthe cosmological ideas and visionary experience of the eleven shamans of thevillage of Watorik¶.
This exhibition has been organized by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contem-porain in collaboration with Survival International France and the BrazilianComissão Pró-Yanomami NGO (CCPY). The Fondation Cartier is supporting abilingual education programme run by the CCPY and is also participating in aproject involving the comprehensive mapping of the Yanomami territory usinglocal knowledge to interpret satellite photographs.
The exhibition catalogue presents the work of the artists participating inthe show, discusses the history of the village of Watorik¶ and examines thecosmological relationship of the Yanomami to the tropical forest. In addition,a series of previously unpublished photographs documents the history of theYanomami’s tragic encounter with western society.
Bruce Albert and Hervé Chandès
Foreword
Bruce Albert is an anthropologist and director of research at the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD, Paris).
Hervé Chandès is director of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris.
1. Raymond Depardon, Gary Hill, Wolfgang Staehle, Adriana Varejão and Stephen Vitiello.
2. Vincent Beaurin, Tony Oursler and Naoki Takizawa worked with texts by Davi Kopenawa and drawings by JosecaYanomami and children from Watorik¶, as well as with video sequences shot by Geraldo Yanomami.
3. Claudia Andujar, Lothar Baumgarten, Rogerio Duarte do Pateo and Volkmar Ziegler.
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Press Information: Linda Chenit assisted by Nathalie Desvaux tel 33 1 42 18 56 77 / 56 65 fax 33 1 42 18 56 52 e-mail [email protected] on-line images / fondation.cartier.fr
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“You may have heard of us. However, you don’t really know who we are. That’s notgood. You don’t know our forest and our houses. You don’t understand our words.So we could die and you would never know it. That’s why, if we remain in the darkfor you, like tortoises buried underground in the forest, I think it could hurt.
The white people living around us, around our land, are hostile. They don’t knowanything about us and never ask us how our ancestors lived. All they think about istaking over our forest with their cattle and destroying our rivers to search for gold.Only people who live far away want to know us and defend us. Their words are pow-erful and can help us. Thanks to their words, the nearby people who are always say-ing things against us will stop invading the forest.
White people came from far away for the exhibition*. They lived among us andheard our words. They saw us with their own eyes and ate our food. We madefriends. Now their thoughts are straight and they stand by us. They will go back andtell the people of their lands about us. They will talk about what they saw and heardin the forest. They will show pictures of us and make our voices heard. Many peoplearound them will then come to understand. If that’s what happens, I’ll be happy. Itwill be a straight and wonderful thing.
When faraway people know about us and talk about us, the people nearby hesi-tate to destroy us. Without the support of their friendly words, the settlers and cattlefarmers would continue to move in on us. One day they might repair the highwaythey left in our forest.1 Then the gold-seekers would rush back in again. The politi-cians would send in machines to dig up the ground and search for ore* and the num-ber of soldiers would continue to grow.2
That’s how it is. Among the whites there are some who are Omama’s people.3
They’re the ones whose thoughts are straight and who defend us. The others—thosewhose minds are smoky and full of darkness, who want to destroy the forest anddrive away the spirits—are the people of Omama’s bad brother, Yoasi, who gave usillness and death.
Right now, as I speak, you are working among us. You see our forest and theWindy Mountain that rises over it. You see us eat, work and sleep. You see us huntand make the animal ancestors dance. You see us act as spirits.4 You draw our words,you take our pictures. We inhale the yãkoana powder to take care of our people.5 Webring back the vital principles of our children stolen by evil spirits. We save their ani-mal doubles wounded by far-off hunters. We protect them from the bird-of-prey spir-its sent by enemy shamans. You observe us and you say: ‘Haixopë! 6 That’s how theYanomami have always lived far away from us. They heal by bringing down the spir-its. We didn’t know that.’ I invited you to our village to give you this thought.
After taking many pictures in our house and our forest, you will take them faraway to other lands. You will show them to children, to young women, to youngmen, to adults and elderly people who will go to see the exhibition. They will askyou questions and you will reply: ‘Yes, the Yanomami are other people who havealways protected their forest.’ Thus, you will give them straight thoughts. Then theywill take interest in us, they will want to defend us. They will think: ‘Haixopë! Welike to see the Yanomami and hear their words. They are great shamans. Their for-est is beautiful and they know how to protect it. It was closed off by the governmentof Brazil.7 If other white people want to invade it, we’ll speak out severely to makethem retreat!’
I’d like the people who come to see the exhibition to have these thoughts. ThenI’ll be satisfied because I want the hostile whites to stop saying: ‘The Yanomami are
Nearby People, Faraway People Davi Kopenawa
Protect the Forest
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Nearby People, Faraway People - Davi Kopenawa 4
people of the forest, animals. They are violent. They are lazy and take up too muchland for nothing.’ I want our children to stop dying from malaria and the flu. I wantthem to grow up in the forest and, later on, to become shamans as well.”
“We inhale the yãkoana powder to enter into the ghost state. That’s how we makethe spirits dance. In the past, their movements could be seen by everyone. Nowadays,although their images are still around, they’ve become invisible to common people.They remain hidden up in the mountaintops and only come down when the shamanscall them. They watch over us and are aware of the ills that afflict us. They extractthem from the bodies of the sick and throw them far away, into the undergroundworld. They heal us. That’s why the spirits are important* to us.The white people do not know them. You have to inhale the yãkoana for a long timeto make them dance and become a strong shaman, able to fight evil spirits andavenge the sick.8 This is as important as studying papers and making people swallowmedicines, as you do. You should think about that wisely and say to yourself: ‘Yes,it’s good to see and to hear the Yanomami call the spirits.’We don’t become other for no reason.9 Our spirits are tiny, but very powerful. Theycan destroy illnesses and heal us. They fight against the evil spirits that devour us likegame. They can also silence thunder, put an end to torrential rains, and calm thestorm winds that break the trees. They make the plants grow in our patches andinvoke the fertility of the forest to fatten up the game. They keep the sky from col-lapsing and the forest from filling up with snakes or epidemics. This is the work thatthe shamans do. Their activity reaches far beyond our villages.The spirits live in stone mountains like the one that rises over our house. It is thehouse of the spirits, the house of our ancestors. Many spirits live in this mountain.Their paths branch out in all directions. The forest is covered with their mirrors.10 Ifthey didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be alive: the evil spirits would eat every one of us up.That’s how it is. And if all the shamans were to disappear, the spirits of celestial fire,Thorumari,11 would go into a rage and destroy everything to avenge their death. Thewhite people wouldn’t be spared any more than we would.The work of the shamans is what keeps us alive. So when you defend us, you shouldthink that the Yanomami shamans reach out to protect you too. Your land seems faraway to you. That’s not true for the spirits. That’s why we want you to know them.Then perhaps you’ll think: ‘The Yanomami shamans are also defending us. They don’tjust protect their forest. Many of them have already died because of the white people.That has to stop now. They live in the forest. They defend what’s left of it, what has-n’t yet been destroyed. And that’s good. If the Yanomami were to disappear, wewould also perish. So let their shamans continue to fight illnesses, let them continueto hold up the sky and hold back the spirit of hunger!’Yoasi’s bad white people say to us all the time: ‘Reject your spirits, they’re not worthanything, they soil your chests!’ However, Omama’s image tells us: ‘If you forget yourspirits, your children will all die off. The rain will fall relentlessly, and the night willnever end. Evil spirits and epidemics will take over the forest!’ That’s why we keepcalling the spirits and refuse to let the cattle farmers and gold-seekers destroy ourland. So tell those who come to see our pictures and hear our voices in the exhibi-tion: ‘The Yanomami want to continue to make their spirits dance. Keep the peopleof God, who want to drive out these spirits, away from them.12 These spirits belong tothem. They know them. They’re the only ones who know how to inhale the yãkoanato call them and make their songs heard.’ ”
Making the Spirits Dance
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Nearby People, Faraway People - Davi Kopenawa5
“Don’t think that the forest is dead, just sitting there for no reason. If it was inactive,we wouldn’t be active either. The forest is what gives us vitality. It is alive. We don’thear it complain, but it suffers, just like human beings do. It feels pain when we burnit, and its big trees moan as they fall. That’s why we’re against deforestation. We wantour children and our grandchildren to be able to get their food from the forest and togrow up in it. We take care of it, that’s why it’s healthy. We clear just a little area toopen up our patches. We plant banana trees, manioc, taro, yams, sweet potatoes andsugar cane. Then, after a while, we let it grow wild again. Our patches become thicklyentangled with vegetation, and the trees start growing back. If we replant our patchesseveral times in the same spot, the plants don’t provide anymore. They shrivel and dryout. They become too hot, like the earth which has lost the fragrance of the forest.After that, nothing will grow there anymore. That’s why our ancestors moved aroundin the forest from one patch to another when their crops dwindled and the game ani-mals became scarce around their houses.
The white people who live near us are different. The cattle farmers have a lot ofmen to help them clear the forest. They chop down the trees and set fire to large areasof the forest. And they do all of that not to grow manioc or banana trees or any kindof food. They only plant grass for their cattle. The gold-seekers dig around in therivers like wild pigs. The waters become dirty, yellowish, full of the epidemic-smokeof engines.13 You can’t drink the water anymore without getting sick. All the fish andcaimans die. And still, the whites keep saying: ‘Open up roads, clear the forest, search
for gold, bring in development!’ If they continue todestroy the forest like this, there won’t be anythingleft of it. Then, later on, they’ll complain of hungerand thirst, like some of them already do.14 They’lllack everything and will have to ask for food fromother people or become thieves* in the cities.
The leaves and flowers fall from trees and pileup on the ground. That’s what gives the forest itsfragrance and its fertility. This odor disappears asthe earth dries out and absorbs the streams deepdown. If the trees are cut and burned everywhere,the earth starts to dry out. These trees, such as theBrazilian nut trees and the kapok trees, are whatdraws the rain. Water only exists in a healthy for-est. When the earth is bare, the spirit of the sun,Mothokari, burns up the rivers. He licks them dry
with his tongue and swallows their fish. When his feet come close to the earth, it startsto bake. Its surface becomes hot and hard. It can no longer give birth to any saplings.There are no more fresh roots in the damp soil. The water has receded far away. Andthen the wind, which used to follow us around and cool us like a fan, also vanishes.Scorching heat settles in. The leaves and flowers piled up on the ground start toshrivel. All the earthworms die. The fragrance of the earth burns up and disappears.Whatever we do, nothing will grow. The forest’s fertility has left forever for otherlands.
We don’t want this to happen. That’s why we protect the forest. Omama wants usto keep it intact. His image says to us: ‘Eat the fruit of the trees without chopping themdown. Clear a space for your patches in the forest, but don’t make it go too far, anduse the trunks you cut down for the fires that give you warmth and that you cook on.Don’t cut down any trees foolishly. Don’t think they’re growing there for no reason!’
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Nearby People, Faraway People - Davi Kopenawa6
That’s why I want you to listen to our words. The thinking of the nearby people isdark and tangled. They keep moving closer to us by gradually clearing the forest.Over where the road begins, in the area that belongs to the Yawaripë,15 the land isalready bare and scorched. Soon nothing will grow there and Ohinari, the spirit ofhunger, will arrive. As long as the Yanomami watch over the forest, he will stay faraway. If the spirits go off and we disappear, he will settle here forever.
These are our words, the words of Omama and the spirits, words to protect theforest. You have come to visit us. I gave you these words in Watorik¶, in our houseof the Windy Mountain. Pass them on to the people of your land. Show them picturesof us and of the forest. Let them hear the sounds of the animals and the songs of thebirds, so that they think: ‘Haixopë! The forest is beautiful. Let the Yanomami continueto live there and protect it from the threat of the white people!’ And if you hear thatthe nearby people want to invade it and destroy it, speak to your elders and to thosein Brazil. Tell them with vehemence: ‘We know the Yanomami. We have slept in theirhouses and eaten their food. We have become friends with them. We want them tobe able to live in their forest in the way they want to!’ This is what we were thinkingwhen we gave you our pictures and our words. That’s how it is.”
Statement received and translated from Yanomami to French by Bruce AlbertTranslated into English by Jennifer Kaku
* Expressed in Portuguese during the interview.
1. A 211-kilometer section of the Perimetral Norte highway (northern beltway of the Transamazonian), abandoned in 1976,cuts through the forest in the southeastern part of the Yanomami territory.
2. An allusion to the three platoons already positioned in Yanomami territory along the Venezuelan border.
3. Omama is the creator of present-day humanity and its cultural codes. Yoasi, his ugly, clumsy, quick-tempered brother,is to blame for all the evils and ills that afflict human beings.
4. “Make the animal ancestors/spirits dance”, “to act as a spirit” are expressions referring to shamanic activity. The artistsinvited to Watorik¶were able to witness several shamanic sessions.
5. Hallucinogenic powder made from the resin of the Virola elongata tree.
6. Interjection expressing a mixture of approval and amazement.
7. In reference to the official ratification and demarcation of the Yanomami territory in Brazil in 1992.
8. Shamanistic healing is viewed as an act of vengeance against the pathogenic entities.
9. To “become other” or “act as a ghost” are expressions that also describe shamanic activity.
10. The spirits always move about on mirrors (mirexipë or mirekopë).
11.When a shaman dies, these spirits, in the form of bright red macaws fly out of the deceased person’s funeral pyre.
12. The expression “the people of God” (Teosi thëripë) refers to the missionaries, especially the Anglo-Saxon evangelistswho practice a particularly aggressive type of proselytism.
13. The Yanomami associate epidemics with the smoke from manufactured objects and engines. They thus refer to them asxawara wakixi, or “epidemic-smokes”.
14. An allusion to the recurring droughts that affect the Brazilian Nordeste.
15. The name of a Yanomami group contacted by the builders of the Perimetral Norte highway in 1973. Much of their landhas been deforested and invaded by cattle farmers and settlers.
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Press Information: Linda Chenit assisted by Nathalie Desvaux tel 33 1 42 18 56 77 / 56 65 fax 33 1 42 18 56 52 e-mail [email protected] on-line images / fondation.cartier.fr
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Shamanism, along with the complex rituals for dealing with death and the dead, isone of the pillars of Yanomami culture. Individual or collective shamanic sessionsconstitute a spectacular yet regular activity in Yanomami communal houses. Each vil-lage has at least one or two shamans and sometimes more than ten, as is the case inthe Watorik¶ community.
In their own terms Yanomami shamans “bring down” and “make dance” images(utupë) of beings from the mythological origins of the world, especially those ofhuman/animal ancestors from original creation (yaroripë). The shamans incorporate
these “images” one by one as auxiliary spirits (xapiripë) in orderto carry out various supernatural tasks for which the attributesor competences of these entities have been summoned.
These spirits appear to them in the form of tiny human-likecreatures, which are compared to shining particles of dust.Always magnificently draped in colorful, luminous feathers,they dance slowly on big mirrors and never touch the ground.During these sessions, the shaman reproduces the special songand dance of each spirit, identifying with them one by one.Because of this process of identification with these images/spir-its from the earliest times, Yanomami shamans are known asxapiri thëpë, “spirit people.”
The shamans’ main activity is to cure members of their com-munity and to protect them from predatory powers which canbe both human (bad allies or enemies) or non-human (forestevil spirits, enemy shamanic spirits). They are also responsiblefor ensuring the regular alternation of days and seasons, theabundance of game and the fertility of the crops and the forest.Lastly, if an old shaman dies, it is their job to prevent hisorphaned spirit from cutting into the heavenly vault and thuscausing it to fall, a cataclysm from which they believe the worldoriginated and which could also provoke its end.
It is said that every future shaman is, from childhood, hauntedby the strange dreams induced by the spirits as they fix theirgaze on him. Later, guided by the elders, he will have to learnto see these spirits. The initiation of a shaman is both a painful
and ecstatic process. For several weeks the shaman inhales yãkoana, a powerful hal-lucinogen and his body is then dismembered, inverted and recomposed by the spir-its. This is the price to be paid if he wants to be able to see them, learn their songsand make them work for him.
By invoking, incorporating and combining images from the origins, Yanomamishamanism has developped a way of interpreting the reality of the world and of act-ing on its underlying mechanisms. It presupposes the shamans’ capacity to transcendthe barriers between the categories of beings that people the universe by embodyingthem one by one. This incorporation of originary images gives them the potentialpower to take on the subjectivity of all possible existences, whether human or non-human. The body of the shaman thus becomes the junction of the ontological unityof all existence or, in other words, a portal for a general knowledge of the cosmos.
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Press Information: Linda Chenit assisted by Nathalie Desvaux tel 33 1 42 18 56 77 / 56 65 fax 33 1 42 18 56 52 e-mail [email protected] on-line images / fondation.cartier.fr
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The word “Yanomami” means “human being”. The Yanomami are hunters-gatherersand horticulturalists who inhabit a part of the Amazonian tropical forest on either sideof border of Venezuela and Brazil. In Brazil, their population of approximately 12,500lives in 185 villages and communal houses situated in the north-Amazonian states ofAmazonas and Roraima.Their first sporadic contact with white men—essentially military of the BorderCommission, members of the Indians Protection Service (SPI), latex collectors andexplorers—occurred in the first decades of the 20th century. In the 1950s and 60s anumber of permanent (Catholic and Evangelical) missions were set up on their land.It was only in the mid-1970s that they experienced more massive, destructive contactwith their white neighbors.
This began in 1973-1976 with the opening of the northern section of the trans-Amazonian highway in the south-eastern part of their territory. Then came the threatof decimation by epidemics (malaria, respiratory infections) and the violence which
accompanied the “gold rush” that attracted some 40,000prospectors to the western part of Roraima state in1987-1989.
However, although these invasions were highlydestructive, they were also short-lived: 211 kilometersof the Perimetral Norte highway were abandoned to theforest in 1976 and most of the gold panners were pro-gressively expelled from Yanomami territory after 1990.On both occasions, therefore, Yanomami society man-aged to escape depopulation and the total loss of theirculture.
Thus, in spite of these tragic episodes and threats totheir territory represented by various local economicinterests (especially agricultural colonization and min-
ing), the Yanomami today constitute the largest indigenous community in Brazil tohave preserved their traditional way of life. They occupy a territory of some 96,650square kilometers, which was officially recognized by a presidential decree issued inMay 1992 before the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Since 1999 the Yanomami havebeen provided with medical assistance by URIHI (www.urihi.org.br), a Brazilian NGO
funded by the National Health Foundation (FUNASA), a Brazilian state institution.Another NGO, CCPY, founded in 1978, is running a campaign in Brazil in defense of
Yanomami territorial rights. Since 1995, this organization has also run a bilingual edu-cation program designed to enable the Yanomami to defend these rights for them-selves (www.proYanomami.org.br).
Born in 1952 inCasablanca, Bruce Albert is a doctor of anthropology at the Université de ParisX-Nanterre (1985). He is now head of research at the Institut de recherche pourle développement (IRD, Paris), and is currently working in S‡o Paulo, Brazil, wherehe has lived at regular intervals since 1973. He is also vice president of SurvivalInternational (France).
Albert has been working with the Yanomami of Brazil since 1975, carrying outanthropological research (social organisation, ritual systems, cosmology and shaman-ism, representations of contact, ethnogeography and socio-economic changes) and
helping to set up health, educational and environmental programmes. He is the cofoun-der of two Brazilian NGOs (CCPY and URIHI) which are running programmes in Yanomamiterritory in the northern Amazonian states of Roraima and Amazonas. Bruce Albertspeaks one of the four Yanomami languages fluently. He has continued to sojournwith these Indians for periods of several months ever since the 1970s. It was his long-standing friendship with the Yanomami of Watorik¶ that made it possible to organizethe artists’ stays with the community there. He has known Davi Kopenawa since 1978.
Davi Kopenawa was born around 1955 at Marakana, a collective house in the upperreaches of the Toototobi River, near the border with Venezuela. He lost most of hisfamily in the epidemics (measles, flu) of 1959 and 1967. Grief-stricken and perplexedby the mortal power of the white man, in the early 1970s Davi Kopenawa left to workfor the National Foundation for Indians (FUNAI), serving it as an interpreter. This expe-rience gave him a better knowledge both of the Yanomami territory as a whole andof the world around it. He subsequently settled in the village of Watorik¶, where hemarried the daughter of the community’s leader and oldest shaman, who initiated himinto shamanism in the early 1980s. Faced with a new invasion of the Yanomami ter-ritory by gold panners and a new wave of decimation afflicting his people in 1987, hebecame committed to an unrelenting fight to defend the Yanomami and the forestwhere they live. In recognition of this he was awarded the United Nations EnvironmentProgram’s Global 500 prize.
In parallel with the exhibition Yanomami, Spiritof the Forest, the Fondation Cartier is financing a Yanomami ethnogeography projectorganised by the CCPY, the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD, Paris)and the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS-CREDAL). This projectinvolves the comprehensive mapping of the Yanomami territory using the mostsophisticated satellite technology available today. This will enable the Yanomami toacquire a more global knowledge of their territory and thus to optimize the occupa-
tion and sustainable use of their land. At the coreof this project, jointly led by Bruce Albert (IRD) andFrançois-Michel Le Tourneau (CNRS), is the creationof a database using recent satellite images, completewith place names in Yanomami. This ethnogeo-graphic project with the Yanomami has beenorganised in the framework of the bilingual edu-cation programme set up by the CCPY, part ofwhich involves training Yanomami teachers howto read and use satellite images. An immensemosaic of satellite images, shown in the exhibitionand reproduced in the catalogue, will give anoverall view of the Yanomami territory in Brazil.
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Press Information: Linda Chenit assisted by Nathalie Desvaux tel 33 1 42 18 56 77 / 56 65 fax 33 1 42 18 56 52 e-mail [email protected] on-line images / fondation.cartier.fr
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Claudia AndujarBorn in 1931 in Neuchâtel. Lives in São Paulo.
Both with her camera and by her activism, the Brazilian photographer ClaudiaAndujar has played a fundamental role in obtaining recognition of the Yanomami ter-ritory from the Brazilian government. She moved to the country in 1956 and begandoing documentary work on the Karajá Indians. She came into contact with theYanomami in Amazonia in the early 1970s and decided to dedicate her work to them.A founding member of the Brazilian NGO Comissão Pró-Yanomami (CCPY), ClaudiaAndujar’s photographs of the Yanomami (portraits, everyday scenes and shamanic rit-uals) constitute the largest body of work yet produced on the subject.
In 1975-1976 she witnessed the first large-scale epidemics that hit the Yanomamipopulation during the construction—subsequently abandoned—of the PerimetralNorte highway. This moved her to give up photography for a while to help with therio Catrimani health unit. As a result of this period, and of the invasion of Yanomamiterritory by the gold diggers in the 1980s, she produced a moving series of photo-graphs showing the often disastrous consequences of contact with the whites. Usingsuperimposed images, her most recent photographs convey the processes of shamanicthought, which works by progressive absorption and metamorphosis.
Black and white photographs:
20 black and white collection prints on semi-matt fiber paper, warm toned
Identity Series, Wakatha u9 x 1976 (23 x 29 cm), 1 x 1974-1976 (23 x 29 cm), 1 x 1977 (23 x 29 cm)1 x 1976 (99 x 87 cm), 1 x 1976 (147 x 99 cm), 1 x 1976-1977 (99 x 87 cm), 1 x 1977 (99 x 87 cm)
Identity Series, Hwaya u, 1975 (23 x 29 cm)
The House Series, Wakatha u, 1974-1976 (87 x 97.5 cm)
The Invisible Series, Wakatha u2 x 1976 (87 x 99 cm) and 1 x 1974-1976 (87 x 99 cm)
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest The Artists and the Works 11
(Claudia Andujar continued)
Color photographs:
10 black-and-white photographs with superimposed color, printed on color paper
Contacts Series, Garimpo, Erico1 x 1980 (66.9 x 100 cm), 1 x 1980/1989 (66.5 x 100 cm)
Contacts Series, Garimpo, Paapi u, 1984 (66.7 x 100 cm)
Contacts Series, Pé de Pato, Ajarani1 x 1981 (66 x 100 cm), 1 x 1980/1989 (66.2 x 100 cm)
Contacts Series, Perimetral Norte, Ajarani1 x 1980 (65,8 x 100 cm), 1 x 1980/1989 (65.4 x 100 cm)
Contacts Series, Opik¶theri, 1982/1998 (67.5 x 100 cm)
Contacts Series, Sorveteria, Caracaraí, 1982/1989 (66.8 x 100 cm)
Dreams Series, Toototobi, The Fall of the Sky, 1976/2002 (67.8 x 100 cm)
Lothar BaumgartenBorn in 1944 in Rheinsberg. Lives in New York and Düsseldorf.
Language occupies a central position in the multifaceted work of Lothar Baumgarten,which embraces photographs, films and books. In 1978-1979 he spent eighteenmonths with the Yanomami in the Upper Orinoco region of Venezuela, completelycut off from the outside world. It was only after having spent eight months with thiscommunity at Kashorawëtheri that he took his first photographs. In 1985 he made twovisits to the Yanomami of the rio Uraricoera region in Brazil, where he photographedabandoned Yanomami communal houses (yano or xapono) and the ravages causedby the coming of the gold diggers. From these sojourns, Baumgarten brought backover 72 hours of sound recordings, 9 hours of 16mm film and many notebooks,recording his dealings with the Indians, as well as several series of black-and-white
photographs. One of these, River-Crossing,was made in the space of only a few minuteson the Orinoco, in the Kashorawëtheri region.
Series of 15 gelatin silver printspresented in the exhibition:
River-Crossing, Kashorawëtheri, 197811 x (62.2 x 48.9 cm), 3 x (64.5 x 80.6 cm), 1 x (103.8 x 135.3 cm) Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
River-Crossing, Kashorawëtheri, 1978Series of 6 gelatin silver prints published
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest The Artists and the Works 12
Vincent BeaurinBorn in 1960. Lives in Paris.
Over the last twenty years, the artist Vincent Beaurin has been examining the ways inwhich we read a work of art. Starting from the postulate that language develops out ofexchange and use, he is particularly interested in so-called functional objects. In 2002,he conceived the exhibition Fragilisme with Alessandro Mendini and Fabrice Domercqfor the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain. His sculptures, watercolors and filmsare the poetic crystallizations of a singular cosmology. Both his visual works and histexts, in which each word is chosen with a real sense of perfectionism, are the fruit ofhis visions, of the appearance and transformation of mental images. His Enseignes(Signs) can be “compared” to the visions of the Yanomami shamans. Their glitter skinsevoke the scintillating, magnificent luminosity of the animal ancestor spirits.
Enseignes [Signs], 2002-2003:
Black, 2003 (128 x 50 x 60 cm)
Black trophy, 2003 (35 x 70 x 30 cm)
Yellow, 2003 (70 x 57 x 98 cm)
Yellow, 2003 (97 x 85 x 60 cm)
Yellow (high), 2002 (approx 170 x 75 x 65 cm)
Yellow and black, 2003 (103 x 40 x 58 cm)
Yellow and black (small), 2003 (50 x 39 x 23 cm)
Yellow and black landscape, 2003 (35 x 100 x 100 cm)
Yellow and black trophy, 2003 (80 x 55 x 36 cm)
9 sculptures in polystyrene and wood and polyester glitter
192 domes, 2003 (approx 7 x 4 m): polystyrene and polyester glitter
Black, 2003 (35 x 28 x 28 cm): wood
Black expanse, 2003 (environ 2.30 x 1.80 m): polyester glitter
Raymond DepardonBorn in 1942 in Villefranche-sur-Saône. Lives in Paris
A filmmaker, photographer and journalist, Raymond Depardon’s work over the lastthree decades has made an important contribution to the rejuvenation of French pho-tojournalism. From Chile to Chad, from Venice to Afghanistan, his reports express aprofoundly singular vision that takes them well beyond the conventions of pressimagery. He has published numerous books in which his photographs are set along-side his own texts and notes, among them Tchad (1978), Correspondance new-yorkaise(1981), San Clemente (1984), Voyages (1998), Errance (2000), Détours (2000) andDésert, un homme sans l’occident (2003). In his documentary films and fictions, notably1974, Une partie de campagne (1974/2002), Reporters (1981), La Captive du désert(1989-1990), Délits flagrants (1994), Afrique : comment ça va avec la douleur ? (1996),Paris (1997), Profils paysans : l’approche (2001) and Un homme sans l’occident (2003),he manifests the same determination to get to grips with the real as we find in his pho-tographs. At the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Raymond Depardon hastaken part in the exhibitions Amours (1997) and le désert (2000). For Yanomami, Spiritof the Forest, he has made a color film and a series of black-and-white photographs.
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest The Artists and the Works 13
(Raymond Depardon continued)
During his stay at Watorik¶, he made parallel films of a group of hunters and a groupof shamans, marking the close interdependence of the shamanic world and the greatmental and practical intimacy that the Yanomami have with the tropical forest. Hespent hours out with the hunters and attending the shamans’ cure sessions, trying to“find his own place” in this other world, between the forest and the spirits. “Theyknew that they were being filmed, but that didn’t change them at all. I was a visitor.I was passing by. I was welcomed, received and even desired. They thus offered theirimage to someone who, before that, was not even aware of their existence. I playedmy role as an intermediary, someone who passes things on.”
Watorik¶ (Amazonas, Brazil), November 20027 gelatine silver prints (50 x 40 cm and 40 x 50 cm)2 gelatine silver prints (178 x 121 cm and 121 x 178 cm)Magnum, Paris
Rogerio Duarte do PateoBorn in São Paulo in 1971. Lives in São Paulo
A student of anthropology at the University of São Paulo and associate researcher onthe Núcleo de História Indígena e do Indigenismo (NHII/USP), Rogerio Duarte do Pateois engaged in anthropological and audiovisual research on the subject of inter-com-munity conflicts and ceremonial dialogues among the Yanomami Indians of Brazil,with whom he spent thirteen months doing fieldwork. The ceremonial dialogues aresung dialogues which are used as an official way of conveying news between hostsand guests during Yanomami inter-community celebrations (reahu). Rogerio Duartedo Pateo is also working on a study of the photographs of Claudia Andujar. Wayamuis his first film.
Recent publications“Os olhares do espirito – reflexões sobre a obra de Claudia Andujar” (in preparation).“Agressão e reflexividade: a guerra Yanomami por meio de uma experiencia de comnunicação,” in Revista Sexta Feira, no. 7, 2003 (with Silvia Pizzolante Pellegrino) Guerra, história e sociedade nas Guianas in Sociedades indigenas e suas Fronteiras na regiãoSudeste da Guianas, S‡o Paulo, Editora da Universidade de S‡o Paulo (EDUSP), 2003 “Yanomami: a Construção Imagetica da Realidade Nativa, Sinopse,” in Revista de Cinema, no. 5, 2000
Wayamu [Ceremonial dialogues], Surucucus and Homoxi, 2001-2002Video camera with “Night Shot” (infrared) capabilityDuration: 1:03 minsRogerio Duarte do Pateo Collection
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest The Artists and the Works 14
Gary HillBorn in 1951 in Santa Monica. Lives in Seattle.
Gary Hill began his artistic career in the early 1970s with a series of metal sculptures.Since first using video, for a performance in 1972, he has gone on to experiment withall the available techniques in this medium, exploring the phenomenon of the cre-ation and perception of the image, of its appearance and disappearance. Combiningvideo images, sound, language and poetry, each new work radically renews his prac-tice. Using video as a mirror of consciousness, Hill forces the viewer to engage phys-ically with the image and its demands.
His frequent use of his own body as part of the experiment can be seen to antici-pate his experience of Yanomami shamanism. At Watorik¶ he found that shamanismand its techniques for bodying forth mental images echoed his own visual and philo-sophical concerns.
Impressions d’Afrique, 2003Video installation, mixed mediaDimensions variableCommissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, ParisCourtesy Donald Young Gallery, Chicago and & : in SITU, Paris
Tony OurslerBorn in 1957 in New York. Lives in New York.
Exploring the distinction between the real and the imaginary, revealing what is going“behind” images and means of communication, creating a phantasmagorical worldpeopled by faces that emerge suddenly from a piece of furniture or on a cloud ofsmoke, probing the moment when the image appears—these are some of the issuesexplored by Tony Oursler. Ever since his first works, at the end of the 1970s, his arthas been about creating a mental space out of stories and images. Setting out to putvideo in (or on) the outside world, he emancipated it from the screen and, as of theearly 1990s, began projecting filmed images of faces onto the heads of monstrouslyproportioned effigies. His fascination with certain mental disturbances in which thebody is experienced as fragmented, and with the multiple nature of personality, isexpressed in the Eyes series, which he began developing in 1996. The video installa-tion that he has made for this show is a monumental extension of this. Using footageof shamanic cure sessions shot by Geraldo Yanomami, but also an extraordinary
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest The Artists and the Works 15
(Tony Oursler continued)
bestiary drawn by youth of Watorik¶, theartist sets these images against others thatreveal his own work on the imitation ofmental images.
Mirror Maze (Dead Eyes Live), 2003Video projection with sound on 10 resinspheres (diameter, each: 1.8 metres)Music: Tony Oursler, guitar (performance): Dan Walsh Postproduction Assistant: John Daniel WalshThank you: Vanessa Carreras, Constance DeJong, Shannon Funchess, Julie Opperman, Pravin SatheCommissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris
Wolfgang StaehleBorn in 1950 in Stuttgart. Lives in New York.
A pioneer of multimedia art, in 1991 Wolfgang Staehle founded THE THING, an inde-pendent project that became an important forum for discussion and reflection on thenew media-based arts. Playing on the idea of compressing time and space, the artistemphasises the relation to the present, notably in images that are projected in realtime. Orienting his investigations towards virtuality, the absence of the physicalobject, he used video to create images with a pronounced painterly quality.
During his stay with the Yanomami at Watorik¶, the artist made a number of videosequences including static-shot panoramic landscapes, filmed over 24 hours, one fromthe Stone mountain, which the Yanomami think of as the home of shamanic spirits,and the other, a reverse shot, from the communal house/village towards the mountain.Also, his large panorama proposes a kind of digital image that is analogous to the
supernatural image of the forest elaborated by the shamans. This“mentalisation” of the landscape goes beyond anecdotal illustrationto attain a timeless, abstract dimension.
Pareak¶k¶ (yano haran¶)[The Stone mountain, seen from the communal house], 2003Digital video, duration: 24h
Yano a (Pareak¶k¶ haran¶) [The communal house, seen from the Stone mountain], 2003Digital video, duration: 24h
Watorik¶ (praharan¶) [The Windy mountain, seen from afar], 2003Digital video, duration: 1h
Moko utupë [Image of a young girl], 2003Digital video, duration: 5 mins
Director: Wolfgang StaehleProgramming engineer: Jan GerberPostproduction: Tim JaegerCommissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest The Artists and the Works 16
Naoki TakizawaBorn in 1960 in Tokyo. Lives in Tokyo.
A graduate of Kuwasawa Design School, Naoki Takizawa joined the Miyake DesignStudio when he was 22. He was trained by Issey Miyake and, the following year, wasput in charge of the Plantation line. He became an Issey Miyake designer in 1999.In this role he developed a taste for dialogue with visual artists, musicians and cho-reographers, a curiosity for other disciplines which led him to take an interest in thenew Japanese scene and in a number of international artists. In 1995 he designed cos-tumes for the ballet EIDOS; TELOS by William Forsythe. He has collaborated recentlywith the musician Pierre Bastien, the Silent Poets, the artist Chiho Aoshima, the archi-tects Seijima and Nishizawa, and the “image makers” Warren Du Preez and NickThornton-Jones. Starting from the storytelling of Davi Kopenawa and animal draw-ings by Joseca Yanomami and the youngsters in Watorik¶, Naoki Takizawa has cre-ated Mirekopë, an installation evoking the choreography of images of the animalancestors from the time of the origins and the plants of the forest—spirit-images thathave “come down” to dance on the great mirrors, summoned by the shamans.
Mirekopë [Shamanic Mirrors], 2003Mirrors, aluminium, steel, video projection (DVD) made with Yanomamidrawings by Joseca Yanomami and the youngpeople from Watorik¶7.5 x 8.5 mVideo made by Étienne MineurInstallation design by Daniel AdricCommissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris
Installation produced with the support of
Adriana VarejãoBorn in 1964 in Rio de Janeiro. Lives in Rio de Janeiro.
The works that Adriana Varejão has been making for some ten years now, at theintersection of painting and sculpture, have exceptional visual power. The hybridis-ing, syncretic art of his canvases owes a great deal to memories of Brazil’s colonialhistory, invoking as they do both the miracle of transsubstantiation and cannibalism,as freely interpreted from 17th-century prints. History, culture, geography, the dis-membering of bodies and dismantling of references—the vocabulary of the earlyworks has become much sparer in the later pieces.
During her sojourn in Watorik¶, Adriana Varejão engaged in a dialogue with theYanomami based around her work on the dislocation of the body and of landscapes.The shamans in the village commented at length on his images in relation to theirown cosmological references, notably the symbolic dismembering/inversion of thefuture shaman’s body during his initiation, but also, more generally, with regard to
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest The Artists and the Works 17
(Adriana Varejão continued)
the cannibal theme that informs their theory of supernatural aggression (witchcraft,aggressive shamanism, evil spirits).
Pássaros da Amazônia [Birds of Amazonia], 2003Hand-painted ceramic tiles, 5 x 4 mCollaboration: Beatriz Sauer
Paisagem canibal [Cannibal Landscape], 2003Oil on wood and epoxy, 170 x 220 cm
Cadernos de Viagem: “Connaissance par Corps”, [Travel Notebooks:“Knowledge by the Body”], 2003Oil on linen, 270 x 165 cm
Cadernos de Viagem: Yãkoana [Travel Notebooks: Yãkoana], 2003Oil on linen, 270 x 165 cmCourtesy Galeria Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo, Victoria Miro Gallery, London and Lehmann
Maupin, New York
Em segredo [In Secret], 2003Oil on linen and resin, 270 x 165 cmCollection of the artist
Stephen VitielloBorn in 1964 in New York. Lives in New York.
An electronic musician and creator of sounds, Stephen Vitiello constructs works outof the noises that he records in his surroundings. He retranscribes and deterritorialisesthese in such a way as to transform our sensorial apprehension of the world. Hewas worked regularly on experimental installations with video artists such as TonyOursler and Nam June Paik.
Using recordings made during his sojourn at Watorik¶, he has worked out a soundpiece made up of voices from the forest, a polyphony which is like a call whose mul-tiple registers—stirrings, breathing, quivering—are interpreted by the Yanomami voicein a kind of counterpoint, in accordance with the codes and mythological narrativesand symbols of everyday life.
The title of the acoustic environment that he has created for the exhibition, Heã,refers to this cultural appropriation of forest sounds and to the interpretation of thecalls of certain birds and insects, which the Yanomami see as signs or presages(announcing the presence of animals or fruit, the imminent arrival of visitors or ene-mies, the closeness of a change of season, etc.).
The exhibition also includes Watorik¶, a walk in the Yanomami sound environ-ment captured with great depth and precision using binaural microphones.
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest The Artists and the Works 18
(Stephen Vitiello continued)
Watorik¶, January 2003 (binaural recordings)
1- Long walk: from the village to the river and back, 15 mins 55
2- Davi, Bruce and an angry parrot, 7 mins 56
3- Heri: women’s chorus at night, 6 mins 17
4- Morning walk with rain, 13 mins 10
5- A shaman at 5 am, 5 mins 15
Volkmar ZieglerBorn in 1944 in Karsdorf. Lives in Berlin.
The filmmaker and photographer Volkmar Ziegler started working with the Yanomamiin 1981. Three years later, he made the film Yanomami de la rivière de miel (Yanomamiof the Honey River). Between December 1986 and August 1987 he spent sevenmonths with the Yanomami of Surucucus and learnt their language. During this timehe witnessed the development of the Calha Norte project, a plan for the Brazilianarmy to occupy the high plateau of Surucucus, near the Venezuelan border. In his filmLa Maison et la Forêt (1994), Ziegler gave the Yanomami a chance to express them-selves directly about the intrusion of western society. This film, the culmination of fiveyears of work, represents the first time the most isolated Yanomami of Brazil wereable to express their feelings about the events of their recent history, from the arrivalof the missionaries and then the soldiers to the influx of the gold diggers, while at thesame time reaffirming the mythological and cosmological foundations of their society.
La Maison et la Forêt [Home and Forest], 199416 mm film transferred onto DVDDuration: 2 x 56 minsDirecting, script/camera, editing: Volkmar ZieglerSound: Pierrette Birraux, Volkmar ZieglerOriginal version: French/Yanomami (subtitles in French, translated by Ivanildo Wawanawëtheri, Jacinto Mahekototeri, Bruce Albert and Catherine Alès)
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Press Information: Linda Chenit assisted by Nathalie Desvaux tel 33 1 42 18 56 77 / 56 65 fax 33 1 42 18 56 52 e-mail [email protected] on-line images / fondation.cartier.fr
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Director of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain: Hervé Chandès
Exhibition conceived by Bruce Albert and Hervé Chandès
Curators in charge of the exhibition: Hélène Kelmachter with Leanne Sacramone and Vanessa Critchell; intern: Frédérique Foull
Exhibition produced with the support of
Exhibition designers: Stéphane Maupin and Nicolas Hugon
Technical coordinator: Frédérique Mehdi
Video engineer: Romain Augros
Sound engineers: Sébastien Cannas, Maxime Munoz
This exhibition is presented in collaboration with Survival International, a worldwideorganization supporting tribal peoples, which stands for their right to decide theirown future and helps them protect their lives, lands and human rights. The organiza-tion was set up in the United Kingdom in 1969 in response to concern at the gravesituation of the Brazilian Indians. The French section was founded in 1978.
Survival International played a key role in ensuring the international impact to theCCPY’s 14-year campaign for legal recognition of the territorial rights of the Yanomamiin Brazil (1978-1992), and it continues to actively defend Yanomami territorial, cul-tural and civil rights in that country.
Graphic design: Larry Kazal, Paris
Publications: Dorothée Charles assisted by Sophie Perceval ;interns: Vanessa Bellemou and Cécile Branche
Proof reading: Françoise Buisson
Given the importance of the way images manifest themselves in Yanomami shama-nism, the exhibition catalogue Yanomami, l’esprit de la forêt is a highly visual publi-cation. Archive photographs, geographical maps and artworks relate the uniqueexperience of the artists welcomed to Watorik¶ and the recent history of the Yanomamipeople since their encounter with white men. At the heart of this book, hidden cor-respondences between contemporary art and mythical thought affirm the power ofthe dreamed, conscious or narrated image. Both an art book and a scientific tool, thiscatalogue is entirely dedicated to Yanomami thought. The catalogue also includesDavi Kopenawa’s Les ancêtres animaux (The Animal Ancestors), a tale transcribedfrom the Yanomami by Bruce Albert. This is the first Yanomami shamanic story everpublished in France and has been made possible through the long-term collaborationof Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert.
French version hardbackFondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris/Actes Sud, Arles22 x 28 cm, 208 pages, 341 color and black and white reproductionsAuthors: Bruce Albert, Davi KopenawaPublication: May 13, 2003Price: 38€
The Exhibition
The Catalogue
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Press Information: Linda Chenit assisted by Nathalie Desvaux tel 33 1 42 18 56 77 / 56 65 fax 33 1 42 18 56 52 e-mail [email protected] on-line images / fondation.cartier.fr
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In conjunction with the exhibition Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest, Nomadic Nightspresent events related to the performing arts.
Programme May–July 2003Saturday May 17 at 6 pm and Sunday May 18 at 8 pm: Sarah Chase, Private Rooms – performances in apartment (danse)*Advanced sale of tickets at the Fondation Cartier. Information: tel. 33 1 42 18 56 76
Thursday May 22 at 8.30 pm: Sarah Chase, Private Rooms – scene version (dance)*
Thursday June 5 at 8.30 pm: Edit Kaldor, Or Press Escape (performance)*
Thursday June 12 at 8.30 pm: Odile Darbelley and Michel Jacquelin, Tout doit disparaître, vernissage (installation-performance)
Thursday June 19 at 8.30 pm: Themselves {Doseone & Jel} (concert)
Thursday June 26 at 8.30 pm: Georges Aperghis, 14 Jactations and Tingel Tangel(concert) with Frédéric Davério, Lionel Peintre, Valérie Philippin and Françoise Rivalland
Thursday July 3 8.30 pm: Julyen Hamilton and Christian Reiner (improvised dance and music)
Thursday July 10 at 8.30 pm: Black Dice (concert)
Information and reservations (necessary), every day, except Mondays, from 12 pm to 8 pm. Tel. 33 1 42 18 56 72
*Performed in English
During the exhibition Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest at the Fondation Cartier pourl’art contemporain, activities for younger visitors (6 and upwards) will be organizedon Wednesdays at 3 pm:
Exhibition visits (Wednesdays May 14 and 21, July 2, 9, 23 and 30, August 6, 13, 20, 27)
Bertille Soulier’s “Les belles histoires” (Wednesdays May 28, June 11 and 25, July 16,September 3, 10 and 24)
“Parures de plumes” workshop with Lya Garcia (Wednesdays June 4 and September 17)
“Parures de fleurs et de plumes” workshop with Catherine Reisser and Laurence Quentin(Wednesdays June 18 and October 1)
Encounter with Raymond Depardon and Clémence René-Bazin (Wednesday October 8)
Information and reservations: Vania Merhartel. 33 1 42 18 56 67 [email protected]
Activities for Children
Nomadic Nights
On Wednesday May 14 at 3 pm, young visitors are invited to a special encounter with shaman Davi Kopenawa, Dário, Joseca and anthropologist Bruce Albert.
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Press Information: Linda Chenit assisted by Nathalie Desvaux tel 33 1 42 18 56 77 / 56 65 fax 33 1 42 18 56 52 e-mail [email protected] on-line images / fondation.cartier.fr
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Jean-Michel Othoniel, Crystal Palace (sculpture)
Daido Moriyama (photographs)
October 31, 2003–January 4, 2004
Press opening on Thursday October 30, 2003
Jean-Michel Othoniel, Crystal PalaceCrystal Palace, the exhibition by French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel has beendesigned specifically with Jean Nouvel’s glass building in mind.
Banners of pearls and pendeloques of iridescent glass, veils embroidered withgold sequins, a sublime blown-glass four-poster bed, coloured lanterns radiant withdelicate light, a fountain “of pleasure and tears,” a curtain of pearls spreading out likea landscape have been all conceived for the exhibition. All of the works play on lightant its reflections and invite the visitors to wander through the show which seamlesslyextends to the garden.
For Crystal Palace, Jean-Michel Othoniel collaborated with the most gifted crafts-men, from the master glassmakers of Murano and the CIRVA to the embroiderers ofRochefort.
Daido MoriyamaOrganized in direct collaboration with the artist, the exhibition on Daido Moriyama willbring together approximately 200 photographs, including many of the artist’s most sig-nificant black and white images from series such as Platform (1977), Light and Shadow(1981-1982), Hysteric (1992), Polaroid Polaroid (1997) and Shinjuku (2002).
Born in 1938 in Ikeda City near Osaka, Daido Moriyama was first interested inpainting before turning to photography at the age of twenty-one. In 1961, he movedto Tokyo with the eminent photographer Eiko Hosei, one of the founders of the Vivoagency. Influenced by the work of William Klein and Robert Frank, he began makinggritty street photographs with a hand-held camera, offering a dark view of contem-porary social conditions. His photographs reveal a society deeply affected by the per-vasive American military presence and explore the relation of that society to Americaninfluences, such as Beat generation poets and pop artists.
Daido Moriyama has enjoyed a major retrospective at the San Francisco Museumof Modern Art. The exhibition at the Fondation Cartier will be the first major retro-spective of the artist’s work in Europe.
Upcoming Exhibitions
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest22
Cultural Centre of the Fundació “la Caixa”, Palma de Majorca, Spain
October 7, 2003–January 11, 2004
Press opening on Sunday October 7, 2003
Pierrick Sorin, Plaça Weyler, 3/07001 Palma de Majorca
In March 2001 Pierrick Sorin moved his flat to the ground floor of the FondationCartier. There were video installations in each room—the hall, the kitchen, the livingroom, the bedroom, the bathroom, the studio. Before this new move to Palma deMajorca, the artist presented his work in Barcelona (Av. Marquès de Comillas, 6-8/08038 Barcelona) and Bilbao (Recalde 30/48009 Bilbao).
Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden
June 1–October 26, 2003
Press opening on Friday May 30, 2003
Overview: Highlights from the Collection of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
This selection of works from the Fondation Cartier Collection on show at theBildmuseet includes paintings, sculptures, photographs and video installations by aninternational array of contemporary artists whose work has never been shown inScandinavia before: Beaurin-Domercq, Eliane Duarte, Hubert Duprat, William Eggleston,Udomsak Krisanamis, Alessandro Mendini, Vik Muniz, J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, PierrickSorin, Beat Streuli, Adriana Varejão, Bill Viola and Leslie Wayne.
The Bildmuseet, which is the museum of Umeå University, has recently shownworks from the South African National Gallery, the Stedelijk Museum and the Karinand Lars Hall Collection. Its programme includes large-scale monograph and groupexhibitions.
Exhibitions Abroad
Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest Press Information: Linda Chenit assisted by Nathalie Desvaux tel 33 1 42 18 56 77 / 56 65 fax 33 1 42 18 56 52 e-mail [email protected] on-line images / fondation.cartier.fr
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The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain is open to the public every day except Mondays, from 12 am to 8 pm.Entrance fee: 5 €, reduced rate: 3.50 €
BookshopThe bookshop of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain is open at the same hours as for the exhibitions
Nomadic NightsThursday evenings at 8.30 pm (except special evenings).Information and reservations (necessary), every day, except Mondays, from 12 pm to 8 pm. Tel 33 1 42 18 56 72Entrance fee: 5 €, reduced rate: 3.50 €
Group visitsBy appointment onlyGuided visits daily through the exhibitions
Activities for childrenVisits round the exhibitions every WednesdayMeetings with the artists and other activities
Lecture Series/Introduction to contemporary artMondays and Tuesdays, from 7.30 pm to 9 pmBy registration onlyDocumentation available on request
The Circle of FriendsMembership of “The Circle of Friends” of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain offers many advantages (free entry to the exhibitions, invitations to private views, 10% discount in the bookshop, 30% discount on lecture courses…)
For information on all these activities, Vania Merhar:tel 33 1 42 18 56 67 e-mail [email protected]
The exhibition Yanomami, Spirit of the forest is organized with the support of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain under the aegis of the Fondation de France and with the sponsorship of Cartier.
