Mauro Restiffe, Belvedere, 2003. Galeria Fortes Vilaca, Sao Paulo. © Mauro Restiffe.

First individual exhibition in Spain of Brazilian photographer Mauro Restiffe, highlighting architecture and town planning opens on Wednesday at Casa de America as part of the PHotoEspaña. The show includes nearly 40 black and white large format photographs portraying urban life with a documentary style.

Restiffe usually makes black-and-white photographs that he presents in large-format analog enlargements. The works, which are documentary in nature, deal with subjects such as urban life, space and architecture. The distant viewpoint found in his panoramic images produces an effect that makes them fairly unspecific. Within an artistic context in which computer retouching is commonly used, Restiffe prefers not to manipulate his images and one can see in them details that are only perceived after patient observation.

This show offers a selection of approximately 35 photographs from the artist’s most recent series produced between 2003 and the present time, including Empossamento (Taking Office) (2003), in which he depicts the urban landscape of Brasilia at a key moment in Brazil’s history: the day President Lula da Silva took office in 2003; Red Light Portraits (2006) in which Restiffe portrays motorcyclists waiting for a traffic light to turn green; and Vertigem (Vertigo) (2009) a series in which he worked specifically with architecture.

Mauro Restiffe (Brazil, 1970) studied cinema at the Armando Álvares Penteado Foundation in Sao Paulo. He has had solo exhibitions in art centres such as the Casa Triángulo gallery in São Paulo, the Henry Urbach gallery in New York and the Sao Paulo Cultural Centre. In 2006 his work was included in the biennials of Taipei, Sao Paulo and Liège.