Marc Ferrez & Robert Polidori: Rio (2 Vol. In Box)

Marc Ferrez (1843-1923) is the most important Brazilian photographer of the nineteenth century. Ferrez produced a vast documentation of Rio and its surroundings using specialized cameras and large-format negatives, including a rotating panoramic camera. His last large-scale project was the Avenida Central album (1905), a unique architectural photography series on urban renewal in Rio in the early 1900s. Housed in a slipcase, Rio contains the work of two photographers who portray Rio de Janeiro in a visual dialogue spanning the centuries. Book One showcases nineteenth-century photographer Marc Ferrez's classical work on the city where he spent his five-decade career, from the mid-1860s to the early 1910s, while Book Two presents a project of Robert Polidori's from the past five years, in which he photographed Rio, emphasizing its contemporary dynamic and dense urban configuration. Polidori contextualizes today's Rio within the natural settings from which the city grew, and which have defined its iconic international profile throughout history. This tension between the natural and built environments, also significant in Ferrez's work, is a defining reference for Rio's inhabitants and is here beautifully documented in its historic and present variations.