The exhibition Gold showcases the iconic photographs Sebastião Salgado took in the Serra Pelada gold mine in Brazil back in 1986. This famous series will be presented in its entirety, gripping viewers with its unique biblical quality and powerful, universal narrative of the human condition.
On the walls of the exhibition area, we can see men of different ages, classes and skin colours climbing on flimsy ladders while carrying heavy, 40-kilo bags. It is easy to believe that they are climbing on each other mistakenly, but no. Instead, this is a tableau of well-oiled, anarchically organised collaboration devised by the gold prospectors themselves. Each plot, measuring three by two metres, was claimed by a man while another financed the actual gold prospecting and any profit was shared equally between them. The heavy, physical work, mining the rock and carrying away the ore, was performed by hired hands who dreamed of being the one who would get to share in a bag filled with gold.