A Worthy Peace Prize Winner: The Brazilian Photographer Sebastião Salgado | Culture | '
In the past, Sebastião Salgado photographed people as victims. Now the world famous photographer and photojournalist is fighting for the conservation of nature. This is exactly what the jurors of the Board of Trustees were convinced of. They recognized the Brazilian living in Paris, the Peace Prize of the German book trade endowed with 25,000 euros, which is presented annually in the context of the Frankfurt Book Fair in the Frankfurt Paulskirche.
"Salgado is a great person, a humanist," says Margot Klingsporn, director of the Hamburg-based photo agency Focus, who represents Salgado in Germany, "a courageous, dedicated person, where work ethic and personal ethics are one." In fact, much of this award winner is amazing. Not only that he is actually a trained economist and came on early business trips to Africa by chance to photography. Convincing is above all what he took with his camera on the grain – and how.
Member of the agency Magnum
It is his documentary view of the world and its inhabitants that earned him early recognition. In 1973 he set up his own business as a photojournalist and set out from Paris for his photo reportages. From 1974 he worked for the photo agency Sygma, toured Portugal, Angola and Mozambique. Then he moved to the agency Gamma, reported from Africa, Europe and Latin America. In 1979, Salgado was admitted to the prestigious Magnum agency.
Captured by the camera of Sebastião Salgado: A group of Waura Indians fishing on Lake Piulaga in Brazil.
Since then, Salgado has been using black and white photography to target the lives of people at the bottom end of society, especially in developing countries. This resulted in extensive illustrated books and impressive traveling exhibitions. So in the 1980s he explored the future of work in his project "workers – workers".
His photo reportage from 1986 about voluntarily hard-working gold miners in the Brazilian gold mine Serra Pelada, whose working conditions seem to be medieval, also became famous. And for the New York Times Magazine Salgado photographed in April 1991 in the second Gulf War of Saddam Hussein's troops set fire to oil wells and the following firefighting.
For many of his works Salgado was honored with prizes. He is now a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and since 2016, the French Académie des Beaux-Arts. In 2014, German film director Wim Wenders shot the documentary "The Salt of the Earth" – a tribute to the star photographer.
Imposing illustrated book: Genesis
Impressive black and white photographs
With his wife Lèlia Deluiz Wanick, Sebastião Salgado has two grown children. She is an architect, publishes most of his books and curates many of his exhibitions. In Germany, Salgado's photographs were last seen at C / O Berlin. The cycle "Genesis", a visual tribute to the blue planet, showed archaic volcanic landscapes, arctic ice masses, meandering river canyons, mist-shrouded mountain ranges, pristine rainforests and endless sand dunes. In opulent black and white photographs, Salgado documents the overwhelming beauty and biodiversity of unspoilt flora and fauna, as well as the way of life of indigenous peoples.
"With the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, the Börsenverein honors a visual artist who demands social justice and peace with his photographs and who lends urgency to the global debate on nature and climate protection," the board of trustees of the Börsenverein justified its decision. "At the same time, Sebastião Salgado has created with his 'Instituto Terra' an institution that makes a direct contribution to the revival of biodiversity and ecosystems."
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