German Lorca

German Lorca - Vista Zona Cerealista para o Centro

Technique: Gelatin silver on paper

Artist Biography: German Lorca was born in São Paulo, in 1922. Photographer and graduate of the Liceo Académico in 1940, he participates since 1949 in the Foto Cine Club Bandeirantes (FCCB), a group of artists who introduced new trends in photography, such as José Yalenti (1895-1967), Thomaz Farkas (1924-2011) and Geraldo de Barros (1923-1998). In this period he produces well-known images, such as Malandragem, 1949, À Procura de Emprego, 1951, and Apartamentos, 1952. He recorded the landscape of the city of São Paulo, especially in places in the central region, such as Sé Square. He opened his first studio in 1952, and in 1954 he worked as the official photographer for the celebrations of the IV Centenary of the city of São Paulo. From that date on he dedicated himself exclusively to photography, working mainly in the area of advertising, where he won awards such as the Colunistas Prize, granted by the magazine Meio & Mensagem, in 1985 and 1989. His production during the FCCB period is analyzed in the book A Fotografia Moderna no Brasil, by Helouise Costa, published in 1995 by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Lorca's work articulates a sort of urban poetics of the streets of São Paulo, composed of landscapes at once everyday and disconcerting. Combining intimacy and estrangement, Lorca creates ambiguous and suggestive compositions. Roland Barthes' punctum acquires here an unforeseen protagonism, for Lorca's photographs are full of perforations, tears, disturbing (dis)encounters hidden in apparently familiar scenarios. Only by looking through these visual cracks, and not around them, is it possible to decipher Lorca's fascinating imaginary, the lucid freedom of his gaze. The photographer's sensibility focuses mainly on scenes of everyday life, recording with great freedom images that reveal themselves poetically or provoke a certain strangeness. His early production has a decisive participation in the renewal of modern photography in the country. His work has been included in important collections around the world, such as Banco Itaú (São Paulo), Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), Pinacoteca do Estado (São Paulo), Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (Miami) and MoMA (New York).