EXHIBITION PÓS-NEW
Pos-New Photography brings together black-and-white images that revisit the spirit of “new photography” from a contemporary perspective. Combining portraiture, architecture, and urban scenes, the series explores strong contrasts, precise framing, and experiments with light, movement, and long exposure. The work updates modernist traditions while affirming photography as a space between document, artistic expression, and formal research.
A photographic novel of Brasília as it became Brazil’s true cultural capital.
In the 1980s, photographers Nick Elmoor and Ricardo Junqueira founded the Pós-New agency, documenting Brasília’s vibrant music and arts scene. Bands like Legião Urbana and Plebe Rude helped redefine Brazilian music, creating a strong cultural identity among young people.
Working in an experimental and independent way, the duo photographed musicians, friends, theater, and the city itself—often using the streets as their studio. Their work, produced through handcrafted analog processes, remained archived for over 30 years.
Now, thousands of previously unseen negatives are being revisited, revealing a unique visual record of a defining moment in Brasília’s cultural history.
Post-New Photography
A photographic novel of a Brasília that became the true capital of Brazil.
There was a time when the city lived with an almost childlike feeling: the discovery of the possibilities of photographic imagery through records of Brasília’s musical and artistic scene. It was during this time, in the increasingly distant 1980s, that the agency Pós-New emerged, founded by photographers Nick Elmoor and Ricardo Junqueira.
Brasília, the city dreamed of by Dom Bosco and designed by Lucio Costa, became a landmark in Brazil’s history. The modernism of Niemeyer’s elegant lines, in contrast with the most beautiful sky in the world, also played a decisive role in giving rise to cultural movements that helped firmly establish, in the central plateau, the country’s capital. Bands such as Legião Urbana, Plebe Rude, Cinco Generais, Arte no Escuro, and Peter Perfeito changed the Brazilian musical landscape, and their powerful lyrics—deeply connected with Brazilian youth—made us less dependent on international pop culture. At that moment, more and more Brazilian poems were being sung by Brazilians. Renato Russo certainly touched our hearts and souls far more than the Beatles or Bob Dylan. In short, great artists who were just like everyone else, without that distant air of an almost arrogant artistry like João Gilberto or Chico Buarque.
The “Coca-Cola Generation” was born in Brasília—one that knew Eduardo and Mônica could be friends from the neighborhood, that understood the metaphors of Faroeste Caboclo, that was moved by Tempo Perdido, and filled their lungs to sing that “the concrete cracked.” At that time, someone had to document this movement with an intimate взгляд, and nine out of ten bands from Brasília passed through the lenses of the duo. More than that: Elmoor and Junqueira also created advertising campaigns, turned friends into models, and used the streets as their studio. They experimented constantly and had just as much fun doing it.
This story of sound and light was imprinted on thousands of negatives which, after more than 30 years stored away due to the duo’s diversification into other professional activities, are now beginning to emerge from obscurity. “Honestly, I think we have a treasure in our archives,” explained Nick Elmoor in a 2009 interview. “We are discovering many things about our way of photographing and how good it was to have lived through that period,” added Junqueira in the same interview with Correio Braziliense.
The duo’s idea is to gather the most expressive images of the time into a book and an exhibition in time to celebrate Brasília’s 60th anniversary. Carefully preserved and virtually 100% unpublished, this material is a truly organic record of an incredible period in the city’s history.
“Being such a young city, Brasília should be proud of every moment it has lived through. And few moments were as significant as this period. We made our record—an honest and unpretentious work. The city will be proud to see it again,” says Elmoor. “We are realizing that we had a greater body of work than we imagined. Many photos that went unnoticed at the time are actually quite interesting,” comments Junqueira.
Almost all the photographs are in black and white, an aesthetic and economic choice by the duo. They developed and printed the images themselves—a handcrafted process that has practically disappeared with the arrival of digital equipment. Elmoor highlights the “hunger to experiment” at every stage of the process: this meant using expired film, streetlights, car headlights—whatever was at hand. Junqueira and Elmoor emphasize that the archive does not contain only records of concerts and rehearsals by rock bands. “We photographed the bands, people from our own circle, theater, the city’s architecture—everything made by young people from Brasília who understood the youth of the country, since each of us brought a piece of Brazil with us when we moved to Brasília with our families.”
There are thousands of negatives, with several hundred already edited and scanned, ready for publication—an unpublished historical document that reinforces Brasília’s importance in the cultural formation of the country.