Valdir Cruz at Throckmorton - New York - photographs of the Yanomami Indians in northern Brazil

Since 1994, Valdir Cruz has taken photographs of the Yanomami Indians, a native tribe of both northern Brazil and remote regions of Venezuela. Their culture and their lives have been damaged and threatened by the encroachments of the modern world (including anthropologists), and, most recently, by illegal gold miners and loggers. In this show of 36 impeccably printed black-and-white pictures, Cruz juxtaposed images of the Yanomami with the dramatic waterfalls of Iguacu on the Argentine-Brazil border.

Cruz has coupled photographing the Yanomami with doing commendable relief work, often delivering medicine and conducting medical research. Woman with Influenza and Asthma shows an elderly woman lying in darkness, obviously disease stricken. However, this was the only picture in the exhibition that indicated the dire circumstances of this tribe. (The accompanying book, Faces of the Rainforest, is filled with such images and gives a fuller picture of the devastation that modern society has wrought.) The rest of the exhibited portraits are reminiscent of Edward S. Curtis's photographs of Native Americans: both formal and informal, they glorify the ancient roots of the Yanomami. In one image, The Arrow Maker, a young man concentrates on securing a long, pointed blade to a stick. Hunting is a way of life for the tribe, and the way that Cruz has captured the dappled light seems to convey the peacefulness and harmony of an undisturbed natural world. In another portrait, Girl from Mokarita-teri, the subject looks directly into the camera, her face covered with spots of ritual paint, her nose and chin pierced with pieces of decorative bone. Her relaxed expression indicates her trust in the photographer; Cruz has visited frequently enough that his subjects are willing to pose for him.

While it seems that Cruz has a mission to publicize the plight of the Yanomami, these beautiful and wrenching photographs still seem to reference a tradition of pictures that reinforces a colonial viewpoint.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group