São Paulo – A Brazilian who lives in Dubai brought faces from the United Arab Emirates to the photo exhibition “Portraits,” which has opened this Tuesday (10) in the Tarja Preta space in the hall of the ticket office of Reserva Cultural movie theater in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro. Marcel Weichert lives in the Arab country because he’s a pilot at a airline based there, and the show in Rio presents pictures taken in the UAE, Myanmar and United States.
The theme is the variety of people everyone faces throughout life, which the photographer calls “the colorfulness of humanity.” “The heart and soul of everyone is very similar as human beings trying to live, struggling in the daily life to make a living in every way possible,” Weichert explains to ANBA. The selection of the photos and the focus of the exhibition were made by curator and photographer Renato Moreth.
From the UAE, the exhibition shows the happy faces of two young Arab men with scarves over their heads (pictured above), almost the opposite of the other image of the exhibition taken in the Arab country that shows an old man with a tense face and a large beard. “Portraits” includes seven pictures, and the other images include an old lady ona train with a far-off look and a satisfied-looking man with a scarf and a hat.
Weichert sees photography as a hobby that may become a professional activity when he retires from his pilot career. When he was a kid, the Brazilian dreamt on piloting planes. But photography has been in his life since an early age. “My father was an engineer and always photographed remarkably well,” he told ANBA.
He has great memories of his father photographing the family in happy moments and then slide-showing them at home during the night, after dinner. “We traveled around Brazil, camping, from Recife to Porto Alegre,” he recounts. Weichert learned to take pictures with the old Rolleiflex of his father, Karlheinz Weichert, when the images were still developed in photo papers inside darkrooms.
The study was put aside while his life as a pilot started. Born in Niterói, which hosts the show, Weichert even started studying engineering but dropped everything to try his dream job when former airline Varig announced it was selecting and training new pilots. He got the job, became a plane pilot and worked for 19 years at Varig until the company went bankrupted.
His new job was in the UAE, where Weichert have worked for 13 years at Emirates. In Dubai, the Brazilian bought a new camera, participated in workshops and started taking pictures again. Since he was in a central zone of the world as the UAE is and traveled with the company to several exotic places, he thought it was time to photograph again and show the pictures not only to his family.
The connection with Renato Moreth, which occurred through his wife’s tourism company in Dubai, opened the doors for the chance to do an exhibition in Rio. They met, and Moreth got to know Weichert’s work, chose the pictures and prepared the exhibition. The pictures at the show are just one side of the photography of the Brazilian, who takes pictures of everything from exuberant landscapes to planes, public markets, seas, people coming and going, vessels, cities, with a mix of tones and colors very well chosen.
Quick facts:
“Portraits” exhibition – Marcel Weichert
March 10 to May 30, 2020, 1-9 pm
Espaço Tarja Preta
Cinema Reserva Cultural hall
Second floor – Avenida Visconde do Rio Branco, 880
Bairro São Domingos – Niterói – Rio de Janeiro
More information: +55 (21) 3604-1545
Contact:
www.marcelweichert.com
www.facebook.com/MarcelWeichertPhotographer/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelweichert/
https://youpic.com/photographer/MarcelWeichert/
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
