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Branco, Miguel Rio : Miguel Rio Branco: Silent Book

Cosac & Naify, Sao Paulo, Brasil, 1997

ISBN 8586374210

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 98 pages. Artist Book. One of the greatest photography books of the 20th century. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by Miguel Rio Branco and Jean-Yves Cousseau: Small-size volume format in square shape. Pictorial hard boards with red titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Miguel Rio Branco. There is no text. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Italy to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Miguel Rio Branco's "Silent Book". Some of the photographer's most stunning images, all of them in "bleed" format. Miguel Rio Branco's work has been hailed for the way it vividly depicts the quiet anguish, carnal sensuality, and explosive violence of Latin America. It is the Latin spirit (rather than the continent itself) that interests him, and he has photographed in Europe to capture this "Latinity". His sequencing of images has also been called "musical". It is not an accident that many of his books include a CD that is put together by him and is meant to be listened to while one views the images. "Silent Book" is the outstanding exception, his tribute to the deafening silence at the heart of his dissonant images. The violence depicted is ritualistic rather than actual (many of the photographs were taken in a boxing gym and at a bullfight) and its true purpose is not, "as some suggest, to incite violence outside, but to mitigate or break the cycle" (Martin Parr and Gerry Badger). A member of Magnum, it is hard to think of him as a documentary photographer. Indeed, his work is about the fundamentally subjective, non-documentary character of reality. The robust and simmering physicality of his images is the work of an artist/photographer who shows the underbelly of Roman Catholicism in all of its "Latinity, an extreme lyricism, contrasting affectivity and violence" (Adolfo Montejo). "My work has a lot to do with skin, for that is the surface connecting us to the world, in pleasure as much as in pain. Skin is a dialogue between outside and inside, a separation that is also a connection" (Miguel Rio Branco). An absolute "must-have" title for Miguel Rio Branco collectors. This title is a great photography book. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a beauty. Please note: Copies that occasionally turn up online have all kinds of flaws: Rubbing, bumping, crushing, soiling, you name it. It's probably because it's a small and fragile volume. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. 75 color plates. Miguel Rio Branco's "Silent Book" was selected as one of the greatest photography books in "The Photobook". One of the greatest artist/photographer of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER MIGUEL RIO BRANCO, GERARDO SUTER, AND ALEX WEBB TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 8586374210.

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