GénesisSebastiao Salgado

Génesis, a traveling exhibition by Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, will be on display from October 23rd, 2014 through February 8th, 2015 at CaixaForum in Barcelona. Génesis explores the origins of the planet through 245 black and white photographs that include landscapes, portraits, and fauna of remote regions the artist journeyed through over the course of eight years. This series, conceived as a long-term project, is preceded by Salgado's Trabajadores and Éxidos, which depicted the human condition and brought to the fore the inequities of the world today. Génesis continues with Salgado's awareness-raising efforts, and it powerfully calls for the conservation of natural resources and a shift in our role in their use. This body of work features images from 32 trips begun in 2004, with Salgado visiting virgin spaces in the polar regions, tropical forests and savannas, deserts, glaciers, and islands. According to hoyesarte.com, the idea first emerged as "planting a forest in Brazil", according to Lélia Wanick Salgado, the artist's wife and the show's curator. Salgado established the Terra Institute in 1990 with the purpose of re-foresting a 700-hectare rural property in Brazil. Génesis is, in many ways, a global corollary to the Institute's work. "Around 46% of the Earth remains in the state in which it was at the time of Genesis. We must conserve what exists", the artist says. With this series, Salgado gives new force to the black and white image to explore a range of gray hues and signal the tone equivalence through the color spectrum. The series is divided into five sections, each representing a vast region with several ecosystems and human communities: Planet Sout; Sanctuaries; Africa; Northern Spaces; Amazonia and Pantanal;Taschen publishes a book compiling the project.