Galo de Briga

Galo de Briga depicts a fighting cock in the signature, saturated colors of Miguel Rio Branco, an artist known for compelling photographs that document life in his native Brazil. Reproduced in his award-winning book, Nakta, this image was taken in Salvador da Bahia, a city that Rio Branco has photographed for many years. Rather than capturing the action of a cockfight, Galo de Briga instead presents its aftermath, focusing on the visibly wounded back of the rooster. Many of Rio Branco’s images reveal a similar preoccupation with wounds and scars, in both animal and human subjects. These references to violence and suffering lend a visceral quality to his vibrantly hued works, which are simultaneously alluring and unpleasant.

Galo de Briga’s formal devices lend the rooster an anthropomorphic quality. Presenting only the back of the animal, the ground-level viewpoint serves to monumentalize the bird’s figure. The rooster is further humanized through linguistic associations between the Portuguese word galo and the concept of machismo, which liken the fighting cock with socially conscribed notions of manliness.