Gold in the Morning

Alfredo Jaar is known for his poignant and politically charged projects. He has traveled the world “bearing witness,” as he says, to some of the world's most devastating tragedies, crises, and conflicts. In 1985 he traveled to Serra Pelada, an enormous open-pit mine in northeastern Brazil. Over the course of weeks, Jaar filmed and photographed the hazardous conditions of the mine and the backbreaking labor of the over 80,000 independent miners, or "garimpeiros," who were lured there by the promise of gold. The artist employs lightboxes typically used for advertising both to lend his images a strong physical presence and to force the viewer to consider consumerism in relationship to poverty and manual labor.