Mario Cravo Neto

MARIO CRAVO NETO (Salvador de Bahia, 1947 - 2009).
"O galo blanco e Maria", 1987.
B/W photography (silver bromide". Edition 1/25.
Signed in the lower right corner. Signed and justified in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 43 x 43 cm; 63 x 62 cm (frame).
The presence of the rooster covering the face of the woman who holds it, "Maria, that is shown to the spectator with the naked torso transports the spectator towards the idea of ritual. Perhaps linked to the Yoruba religion in the same way that Ana Mendieta used the same elements in her artistic reinterpretation. Cravo Neto's work projects an aesthetic charged with symbolism that is created by the artist through a language that resorts to symbols of religion linked to fertility, life and also death represented through violence. For this reason it is common for his pieces to show rites as a result of the cultural, ethnic and racial interaction of northeastern Brazil, where indigenous traditions are combined with cultural influences from Portugal and Africa.
Mario Cravo Neto was one of Brazil's first contemporary photographers. In 1968, he studied for two years at the Art Students League in New York. He then returned to Brazil and exhibited for the first time the sculptures created in New York at the 12th São Paulo Art Biennial. He worked mainly with black and white photography, and representing the Candomble religion. In 2005, he exhibited at the Rencontres d'Arles festival. Currently his work can be found in important art collections among which stand out; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Texas), the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California, the Princeton Art Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California, the Brooklyn Museum, New York, the Sao Paulo Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, the Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection, the Hasselblad Collection, Gothenburg, the Cartier Foundation, Paris and the Lehig University Collection, among others.