"Funk: A Cry of Boldness and Freedom"at the Museum of the Portuguese Language in São Paulo is a collective show of more than a hundreds artists - first exhibited at the Museu de Arte do Rio de Janeiro (2023) and in France, at the Maison Folie Wazemmes (Lille). Brazilian Funk represents the main culture originated In the outskirts and favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other metropoles. Despite suffering decades long of state repression and prejudice, it gained its first big exhibition.
Vincent Rosenblatt photographs the Rio de Janeiro Funk scene since 2005 and participate to the collective show with a set of 24 images.
"Carioca funk is a kaleidoscope of rhythms, rituals, territories, and identities.
My photographs attempt to capture collective movements, individual impulses, and bodily
details: the bodies of the funkeiros as living manifestos of freedom.
Since 2005, I have sought to preserve the fragile memory of these gatherings, to depict the
energy, gestures, and desires of a particular youth in Rio de Janeiro at the beginning of the 21st century. Drawn irresistibly by the beats booming from giant speaker walls and the rawness of lyrics that shake, at every baile, the foundations of social propriety and the illusion of a Brazilian racial democracy, I discovered another Rio.
Very quickly, DJs, MCs, and dancers took me deeper and deeper into their favelas and
peripheral neighborhoods—where funk is created and danced.
The funkeiros shared with me both the responsibility and the risk of producing images of places “forbidden” from representation, stigmatized by certain media outlets and constantly under threat of prohibition. They knew that the most beautiful bailes were destined for repression and destruction, and that this fleeting beauty needed to be documented.
In recent years, in a climate of latent bans on favela bailes, a generation of young producers has reinvented Rio's nightlife. In popular clubs, “Black parties” have amplified the funk carioca
revolution: the celebration of identity and diversity without discrimination creates, for the span
of a night, safe space-times in which to live and dream".
Vincent Rosenblatt, born a Parisian, lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts (ENSBA) in the Atelier of Lesly Hamilton where he graduated in 2001. Rosenblatt moved to Rio de Janeiro and set up a photography workshop: 'Olhares do Morro' on the hills of the Santa Marta favela, providing a place where local youth could develop and study photography - from 2002 to 2008. While working as a photojournalist, Vincent documented the underground Baile Funk scene and fringe urban cultures in Brazil since 2005, when he began a collaboration with the Rio organizers of Baile Funk, dj's & dancers.
Personal exhibitions:
- Galerie Salon H, Paris, 2026
- Tropisme, Montpellier, 2025
- Galerie Pierre Passebon / Galerie du Passage, Paris, 2022
- Alliance Française - Rio de Janeiro, 2022
- Galeria da Gavea - Rio de Janeiro, 2020
- Centro Cultural Internacional of Panama City, 2019
- SESC Madureira in Rio de Janeiro, 2016
- SESC Madureira in Rio de Janeiro, 2016
- CACP - Vila Pérochon in Niort, France, 2015
- Alliance Française - Rio de Janeiro, 2014
- MEP (European House of Photography), Paris, 2011
Collective exhibition:
- "Funk! Um grito de liberdade e ousadia", Museu da Lingua Portuguesa, 2026
- "Clubbing", Grand-Palais Immersif, Paris, 2025
- "Funk! Un cri de liberté", Maison Folie Wazemmes, Lilles, France 2025
- "Funk! Um grito de liberdade e ousadia", Rio de Janeiro Art Museum (MAR), 2024
- “Dance and music", Galerie du Jour, Fondation Agnès B, Paris, 2023
- “Electro" - Philarmonie de Paris, 2019
- Historias Afro-Atlanticas - MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo), 2018
- “Designing Club Culture 1960-Today" - Vitra Design Museum, Germany 2018
- “Rio, a peace of France" MAR (Rio Art Museum), 2015
- "Made by Brazilians, feito por brasileiros", Cidade Matarazzo, São Paulo, 2014.
Read more
