[gallery size="medium" td_select_gallery_slide="slide" td_gallery_title_input="Hafez Gallery brings Sebastião Salgado works to life" ids="52068,52065,52069,52067,52063,52066,52064"]
Mariam Nihal
Solo exhibition of Brazilian social documentary photographer Sebastião Salgado opened at Hafez gallery in Jeddah on Wednesday.
Born in 1944, Salgado has traveled to over 120 countries for his photographic projects. The photographer arrived for the private screening of his documentary ‘The Salt of the Earth’ followed by a discussion with the audience in Jeddah on Tuesday. Salgado visited Hafez gallery the following day for booking signings and pictures with fans from the Saudi art sphere. Two hours in, the 72-year-old refused to speak to press and had to leave. Many young Saudis and art fanatics including photographers arrived at the gallery to take pictures with the notable personality and of course everyone refused to call themselves a photographer in his presence. The awe-inspiring photographs included many of his works including Salgado’s ‘Genesis’ project which was completed on 32 trips over eight years and ‘Workers and Migrations’.
The photographer studies man’s struggle and relationship with nature as he explored man’s connection to the natural world thorough his photographs.
One of the breathtaking photographs features an elephant gravitating towards an unidentifiable force against light in a dense forest. Another brilliant work from the series ‘Kuwait: Desert on Fire’ features a man covered head to foot in oil, facing an on going explosion. Other photographs in this session show men moving like ‘phantoms through the gloom’.
The exhibition runs until Ramadan from 12 pm to 9 pm from Sunday to Thursday and from 5 pm to 9 pm on Saturday.
