Miguel Rio Branco started taking photographs of cities in the late sixties—New York and Rio were among his first muses, cities that, at that time, were alive with activism. Becoming a photojournalist was a natural choice for the artist at that time, but his works were imbued with a kind of visual poetry, a deep feeling of regret and disappointment in the metropolitan structure as it raced towards capitalism. Loneliness and dislocation are common themes in his work, and with little to place the viewer in time or place—unusual in photojournalism—Branco invariably gives us a portrait of urbanity all over the world. A new book of Branco’s portrait of city life, Maldicidade, is now published by Taschen.
