After the intense activity shown by the photographic associations of the main Galician cities during the 1950s and the early 1960s, the dynamism of non-professional photography wanes remarkably and practically disappears in the latter decade. Galician photography, but for very few exceptions, remains on the margin of the movement which emerged during the sixties around the Nueva Lente journal and entailed the renewal of the scene of photography in Spain.
During the early eighties, non-professional photography found expression in sporadic exhibitions which took place in the most important towns, in such a way that one started to see photographs that responded to a reality which was very different from that of the photographic groups of earlier decades. We must also bear in mind that, socially speaking, photography drew very little interest from the spheres of culture, and none whatsoever from the world of art. The art scene of the time was practically dominated by sculpture and painting, and there was no room in it at all for photography.
In this context emerged the Fotobienal de Vigo, and hence the proclamation in its first edition that "The motives inspiring it are the recognition of photography as a cultural phenomenon" thus attempting to "leave behind the ghetto it is secluded in within the world of Galician culture".
From the start, the Fotobienal de Vigo attempts to shatter the parochialism then in place. Another of the key aims of the first edition was Galician historical photography. The intention was for this 1st Fotobienal to be a call of attention on historical photography, and thus put an end to the process of destruction of our photographic heritage, highlighting the fact that its loss led to the extinction of our collective visual memory.
In its second edition, the Fotobienal takes on international dimensions by organising monographic exhibitions of photographers enjoying worldwide recognition, such as William Klein o Martin Parr, and starting the project known as Vigovisións. From that moment on the Fotobienal of Vigo, coordinated by the Centro de Estudos Fotográficos, set itself the following targets:
1. The recovery, study and diffusion of Galician historical photography. Monographic exhibitions were organised of artists such as Ksado, José Suárez, Pacheco, Llanos, Virxilio Vieitez, Archivo Massó... Sometimes, as was the case with Vieitez, they were totally unknown artists that far. The Fotobienal became the point of reference in the historical recovery of Galician photography.
2. The promotion, in the measure of our possibilities, of Galician contemporary photography. In the international project known as Vigovisións, a Galician photography was always included; the section Bolsas (scholarships) was created, which was exclusively dedicated to Galician photographers, and later the section Novas Creacións, also fully dedicated to contemporary Galician photography, besides including photographs taken by Galician authors in other exhibitions.
3. To make Galicia, and very specially the City of Vigo, participate in the debates of global contemporary photography. The central section of the exhibition, constantly present from the 3rd Fotobienal, shows the work of contemporary artists coming from different countries presenting innovative proposals on the international photographic scene. Common to these exhibitions was the presence of authors who, until that moment, had not had their work exhibited in Spain, and in some cases they did not do so until years later. Also memorable are the monographic exhibitions of some authors that, although enjoying widespread recognition as part of the story of world photography, had never been invited to exhibit their work in Spain. Eight editions of the Vigovisións project have already been carried out, turning the City of Vigo into a workshop for the most salient photographers in the international scene of the moment.
In January 1985, the Sala dos Peiraos was set up. It organised one exhibition a month and remained in operation during 6 years, co-ordinated by the Centro de Estudos Fotográficos and presenting a total of 56 exhibitions during that period. The agenda of the Sala dos Peiraos was based on a multiplicity of conceptions, at a time when a great part of photographic exhibition programmes suffered from conceptual uniformity. It exhibited the most salient photographers of those years, such as Joan Fontcuberta, Cristina García Rodero, Manel Esclusa, Gabriel Cualladó, Toni Catany, América Sánchez and Daniel Canogar. Foreign photographers such as Paul Graham, Max Pam, Joel Meyerowitz, Sebastião Salgado, Arno Fischer and Brian Griffin were also invited, as well as classical masters of world photography such as Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Bill Brandt.
As regards Galicia, fifteen joint exhibitions of Galician photographers were organised, apart from others where they took part alongside photographers from other countries. The importance that bringing new photographers to light had for the Centro de Estudos Fotográficos, led us to present every year, under the title of Hoy mismo Mesmo (this very day) the work of Galician photographers that had not been exhibited thus far. Let's also remember, as regards historical photography, exhibitions such as En Vigo en los cincuenta (in Vigo in the fifties), which displayed the work carried out by the members of the Agrupación Fotográfica Galega (Galician Photographic Association) during the 1950s or the work by Manuel Ferrol, Raniero Fernández and Ramón Caamaño.
As a result of the photographic activity carried out by the City Council of Vigo from 1984 to 2000, a photographic collection was compiled of which Vigovisións is only a portion.
Another important part, as large as Vigovisións, consists of several photographs which have been gradually acquired depending on the economic resources available for each exhibition. For that reason, we are not talking of a collection built according to set conceptions, but a set of photographs describing the relationship of the City of Vigo with photography and, specifically, with contemporary photography during the period mentioned above. Different circumstances and budgets caused purchases to fluctuate from one exhibition to the next. In spite of this, in our collection we find the work of photographers as renowned as Álvarez Bravo, William Klein, William Eggleston and Mario Giacomelli.
