The Photographic Project of the Masked Carnival

Masked Carnival has always been a theme that exerted a great fascination on the photographer for being a cultural manifestation that populates the popular imaginary in a poetic way, possessing characteristics such as anonymity, magic, secret, mystery, romanticism, vanity, beauty, sensuality and pleasure.

In this way, photographer Francisco Andrade conducted studies on the so fascinating and attractive theme and, at its ends, conceived the photographic project of the Masked Carnival divided into two parts: the first part of the project has as its theme the Masked Carnival of Venice, and the second part, the Brazilian Masked Carnival.

In his work scheduling, the photographer concluded that it was essential to begin the production of the images by photographing the Carnival of Venice by the reason of being the birthplace, the origin and the source of influence and inspiration of the masked carnivals existing all over the world, including Brazil.

As a result, the photographer made several trips to the city of Venice, from 2012 to 2015, in order to produce images for the first part of the project that, when it was done, gave rise to the art book “CENAS VENEZIANAS”, published with specific treatment, printed in the workshops of Ipsis Gráfica, in the city of São Paulo, by the most color process. In that way, its colors are exuberant with a chromatic depth that makes the book a reference print.

The release happened in 2019 in several Brazilian cities, among them: Photography Festival of the city of Tiradentes; Photography Museum of Fortaleza; Pontifical Catholic University of Goiânia; Embassy of Italy in Brasilia; New Venice in Santa Catarina.

In his visual narrative, Francisco Andrade invites us to a journey over time. He invites us to the Great Masked Ball in the open sky and brings us back to Venice’s apogee, which ruled European commerce as of the 13th century, attracting intellectuals, artists and all those who dreamed of inhabiting the “Sereníssima”. The photographer’s work takes us through that Venice.

The way that the author subtly subtracts the marks of our time makes us travel through the most intimate memories that the city keeps in its canals, in its streets and in its narrow passages.
The book begins its visual narrative with a chapter of black-and-white images and a second chapter with color images to complete its narrative. In addition to photographs, the book has texts in three languages: Portuguese, Italian and English that help the narrative of its images.

His preface is written by Italian’s former Ambassador to Brazil, Antonio Bernardini, at the time of its publication.

The book VENETIAN SCENES is the winner of the Fernando Pini Brazilian Graphic Excellence Award, which is the largest award of the printing industry in Latin America.

Finally, the photographer launched, in 2020, a pocket book with photographs of the Art book project “CENAS VENEZIANAS”. The photos are postcards that can be detachable, being able to be framed or sent to someone.

Currently, the photographer is working on the second part of the project. For this purpose, for three years he has been travelling to several Brazilian cities in order to produce images that, at the end, are going to give rise to the book that will be published about Brazil’s Masked Carnival.