Rorigo Brandão
Brazilian photographer Tuca Vieira, winner of the Prêmio Porto Seguro in 2010, is currently showing his latest work at 1500 Gallery in New York City. The show stays open to the public until July 30, 2011. In this exclusive interview with BrazilNYC, Mr. Vieira talks about his work experience and his fascination with Berlin.
RB – How did you choose the places and buildings that became the subject matter of Berlinscapes? Was there a specific requirement that all of these buildings had to have in order to become part of your work?
TV – The objects must have a hidden meaning, something behind their appearance. They have to provoke a reflection and not simply identify a place. My first interest in Berlin was due to the city’s history, and how the elements of the city reflect the history of Berlin, with all of the drama and beauty. But I always looked for pictures that suggest this relationship, as I am hoping that viewer can also can imagine [these relationships]. I like strange places.
RB -There is a growing Brazilian community in Berlin. Did you feel comfortable in (and welcomed by) the city? Are there a lot of similarities between Berlin and your hometown São Paulo?
TV – Without a doubt. Germans are very respectful, and I, as a Paulista (someone born in São Paulo), feel very comfortable in big cities like Berlin and New York. I don’t speak German very well, and that complicates things a little bit, but the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city made me feel at home there. Berlin and São Paulo have an artistic vibe that is very similar, and both cities are great places to make art.
RB – Berlin, like most cosmopolitan cities, is an incredibly layered space. But at least in my opinion, there’s a lot of places in Berlin where there is almost no gradual change between its layers. Whether it’s the Berlin wall, or the ways in which the city is still so starkly different between East and West, one can often see two Berlins from one perspective. Do you agree that this is part of the Berlin experience? And if so, do some of your pictures try to capture these unique Berlin contrasts?
TV – Yes, completely. Berlin is made of fragments and today, the city is trying to come together as one again. And I try to show some of these fragments with my pictures. They are succeeding at unifying the city though, little by little. And the effort towards making Berlin into a more friendly city is quite admirable.
RB – One of my favorite things about the pictures included in Berlinscapes, currently at 1500Gallery, is the way in which both “natural” and “artificial” light co-exist – at least in some of the images in the show. There’s a lot of drama and action in the interaction between the two. How did you integrate (or even modify) artificial light during the actual shooting? Is this part of what interests you in night photography?
TV – Definitely. This is the “research” part of my work. The work is done with digital cameras, and in the old days, the films were generally balanced for the colors of the day and when we took pictures in the evening, the photographs tended to the yellow and orange. Now, with digital photography, you can correct the colors and make them closer to the “colors of the night. “ There is also, especially at night, a more subjective color, that is also more interpretive, precisely because of this mix of artificial lights, each in a different form.
RB -What are some of your artistic references, as far as modern photography goes?
TV – One of the things I did when I was in New York was to visit the Metropolitan Museum agan. And I went there specially for three works: “Landscape of Toledo” by El Greco, “Piazza San Marco” by Canaletto, and the “Bourgeois de Calais” by Rodin. My influences are more from the world of literature and art than photography. To me there is nothing more beautiful than spending an afternoon in one of these great museums.
