Hardcover with slipcase, signed by George Love on the blank page.

“The book was never understood. Also, it was simply banned during the heyday of censorship.” (George Love)

"In the first part of its 162 pages, Amazônia shows aerial images captured by Love — one of his trademarks — in the states of Amazonas and Pará, and the then territories of Roraima and Amapá. The second block carries a sequence of photos of the Indigenous Yanomami ethnicity, taken by Andujar. According to Silva, the book was put together collectively and should not be seen as an “original one-author product in the traditional sense,” as it involves different agents. As well as the names of Love and Andujar, the historian highlights the work of editor Regastein Rocha (1935­–2021), owner of Praxis and the executive head of the project. ..
In 1978, Praxis released four photography books: Xingu, by Maureen Bisilliat, Fotografias (Photographs), by Otto Stupakoff (1935­–2009), Yanomami: Frente ao eterno (The Yanomami Struggle), by Andujar, and the aforementioned Amazônia. “Regastein’s interest in Amazonia gained momentum when he began traveling frequently to the Manaus Free-Trade Zone in the 1970s, in the service of Sharp Brasil,” explains Silva. According to the researcher, the company enfolded military personnel within its staff who were suspicious of the editor. “Regastein kept in contact with prominent figures from the resistance to the dictatorship, such as anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro [1922­–1997]. Moreover, he started to invite former political prisoners and exiles to work on the firm’s publicity campaigns and publications,” the historian continues. ...
In 1978, military personnel raided Praxis and seized all their machinery and materials. The first two books, still in the early stages of production, were never released. Amazônia was published in the end, but without Love’s photos of the forest burning, and also missing the essay by Thiago de Mello, exiled by the regime in 1968. The editor was interrogated, but discreetly distributed some 3,000 copies; the book was sold at two bookshops in São Paulo and another in Rio de Janeiro; some copies also made it overseas. “The initial idea was ambitious. Regastein was planning an international book launch, but that project never came to fruition,” says the historian, who interviewed the editor and Frances Rocha, a retired professor of the History Department at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC‑SP), during his research." (taken from "The experimentations of George Love")

Pages: 162
Place: Sao Paolo
Year: 1978
Publisher: Editora Praxis
Size: 27 x 20 cm (approx.)

Included in "The Photobook: A History Volume III" by Parr/Badger
>> see more Vol. III picks here

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