Claudia Andujar

‘Genocídio do Yanomami’

by Claudia Andujar, published by Void.

€58.00

‘Genocídio do Yanomami’ (Yanomami Genocide) brings together previously unpublished photographs made between 1971 and 1989 by artist Claudia Andujar. The photographs were made among the Indigenous Yanomami people who live in the remote forest of the Orinoco River basin in southern Venezuela and the northernmost reaches of the Amazon River basin in northern Brazil.

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Genocídio do Yanomami

Andujar’s work ‘Yanomami Genocide: Death of Brazil’ was first presented in April 1989 at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) as an installation with colour slides projected onto plastic screens and mirrors. The photographs were originally black and white, and the artist’s re-illumination of the images reshaped their meaning, instilling urgency for that moment and the years that followed. Andujar’s aim was to raise awareness of the situation faced by the Yanomami, who at the time suffered from disease brought to their land by illegal gold miners. In this new book, Andujar has again recontextualised the images, bringing them into the present and reshaping their meaning for dissemination to a contemporary audience, as the Yanomami remain in peril.

The photographs in the book show both the Yanomami and the landscape they inhabit. They were created with a variety of experimental techniques to visually represent the shamanic culture. They are often high contrast with dramatic light and shadow, distorted, cropped, imbued with a sense of movement, menace, and the otherworldly. The images of people focus on fragments of bodies or close-cropped portraits, hinting at intimacy and the psychological.

“Claudia came to Brazil and the Yanomami lands, thinking about her project. Though not Yanomami, she is a true friend. She took photographs of childbirth, of women, of children. I did not know how to fight against politicians and non-indigenous people, but she gave me the tools to defend our people, land, language, customs, festivals, dances, chants and shamanism. It is important to me and to you to see the work she did and respect the Yanomami people of Brazil who have lived in this land for many years.”

Davi Kopenawa
Shaman and Yanomami leader
from Andujar's exhibition in 2021 at Barbican, London

Alongside her artistic practice, Andujar co-founded in 1978 the Pro-Yanomami Commission (CCPY), which denounced the devastation caused by illegal miners, supported health programmes, and campaigned for the demarcation of Yanomami land. Working closely with leaders such as Davi Kopenawa, this effort culminated, after 14 years of campaigning, in the official recognition of the Yanomami Indigenous Territory in 1992. Today, in addition to the illegal miners established on Yanomami land, Indigenous populations continue to be affected by the policies of governments that have normalised genocide.

‘Genocídio do Yanomami’ (Yanomami Genocide) was developed in close collaboration with Andujar’s gallery, Galeria Vermelho, in São Paulo, Brazil.

Genocídio do Yanomami

27,3 x 18 cm
176 pages
750 copies
Hardcover with French folds

ISBN 978-618-5479-47-3

Claudia Andujar

Claudia Andujar was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1931. She immigrated to the United States in 1944 due to the persecution of Jews during World War II. She studied painting in New York and worked as an interpreter at the United Nations. In 1955, Andujar moved to São Paulo, Brazil, and began her career as a photographer. In 1971, she received a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation to research the Yanomami people from the Brazilian Amazon. From 1978 to 2000, Andujar worked for the NGO Commission Pro-Yanomami and coordinated the campaign for the demarcation of the Yanomami territory, which was officially established by the Brazilian government in 1993. Andujar’s work has been the subject of numerous international group and solo exhibitions, notably the 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Her work is held in the collections of MoMA, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Tate Modern, MACBA, Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, Centre Georges Pompidou, and Inhotim Institute, where she has had a permanent gallery since 2015.

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