Gordon Parks: The Flavio Story
The worldwide impact and intrusion of poverty
The exhibit at the Getty in Los Angeles is at once revealing and intrusive into the world of poverty. The one room sleeping conditions of families of eight or more are heartbreaking and yet somehow you can feel the closeness and love of the family, the mix of hot breath and stale bedding. This very unique exhibition is Gordon Parks…..”evocative statement about love, pain, hunger and despair – and at last about hope.” Here is the acclaimed photographer’s most important assignment for Life Magazine that prompted an extraordinary outpouring of love, support and money for a boy profiled by Gordon Parks in the deepest slums of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Gordon Parks was the first African-American photographer on staff at Life Magazine. In 1961 he was sent by Life to document a family’s poverty in Rio de Janeiro. Parks turned his attention instead to a boy, Flavio, a hard working, severely asthmatic 12-year-old with seven brothers and sisters to watch over. His attention to Flavio began a wondrous chain of positive events bringing the boy to the US to receive treatment for his debilitating asthma.
Parks said by digging “deeper and deeper into the privacy of these lives hoping … to reshape their destinies into something much better.”
When the story broke in Life magazine, Brazil angrily responded by sending a photographer to document poverty in the Lower East Side of Manhattan of a Puerto Rican family. Cleverly, the images are eerily interchangeable and almost replicas of those of Parks. The exhibit includes these images of desperation and hunger in America which were published in a major national Brazilian newspaper and taken by Henri Ballot.
Over the years Parks continued to visit and photograph Flavio now back at home in Rio. These images of Flavio are also on exhibition. Parks regarded poverty as, “the most savage of all human afflictions” and you can feel it here, you can smell it, and your heartaches. Hope was fleeting and everyday life a challenge to survive. No nationality or people should live this way. You will walk away shaken, touched and stunned by the entire story. The exhibit is up through November 10 at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Getty is a must for anyone because of Getty’s dedication to provide one of the most incredible places, stunning architecture and the best art experiences in the world.
